


Nonexistent Heartbeat

by Azyla



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22127293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azyla/pseuds/Azyla
Summary: Blood Bags 0701 and 1220 have only each other in their lives of giving blood. They are separated through a terrifying event, but they vow to meet again. Blood Bag 0701 is eventually offered a dangerous role and she takes it, finding herself thrust into a life vastly different from the one she is used to. It is fate that he has accepted the same role and life as she.
Relationships: Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise/Kirishima Touka
Comments: 31
Kudos: 44





	1. Blood Bag

**Author's Note:**

> First off, I sincerely apologise for my long inactivity on AO3 and the sudden deletion of the previous Nonexistent Heartbeat. I have rewritten the entire plot of Nonexistent Heartbeat as I was no happy with the previous and that is also the reason why I stopped writing it in the first place. I do hope you will enjoy this new one, as I have spent many hours thinking of the new plot.
> 
> Secondly, I believe this will be my final fanfic in the Tokyo Ghoul fandom. I have moved into other fandoms but I also did not want to leave this one without completing something that I know many of you enjoyed. I am not forcing myself to write this. I am wholeheartedly putting as much as I can into this piece of writing in hopes that it will be enjoyable to all of you as my last fanfiction in the Tokyo Ghoul fandom. 
> 
> Once again, I hope you will enjoy reading this.

“Next Blood Bag!” his voice booms.

Blood Bag 0701 knows that it is her turn to be pierced with the needle. It is the only thing that she is let out of her cell for; to be hooked up to that needle and tube and watch as her dark blood fills the pack that it connects to. 

“Move it!” the man sitting next to the white machine barks. His voice thunders across the large room which is filled with many similar machines and similar men like him. The Blood Bags behind her flinch at the man’s loud voice and she briefly turns around to see how many there are after her before turning back to the man.

She cannot disobey. Failure to follow any of their instructions means a fist to her stomach or face, or maybe no dinner served to her later on. Fear of the former forces her to quicken her pace to the uncomfortable bed next to the man.

He grabs her arm delicately despite his rough attitude, but she knows that this is necessary to collect her blood. He must be careful with her so as to not harm her. Even this man has people that he fears.

The man inserts the needle into the underside of where her right arm bends and she winces from the pain as he sticks something transparent on the wound; it’s used to keep the needle in her flesh. She’s sat through this procedure many, many times, but the pain is something that she can never grow used to. 

As the blood flows from her body through the tubes and into the bag she clenches her right hand repeatedly out of habit. The more she clenches the faster the procedure will end and she can go back to her cell to play again.

Though she clenches as hard as she can the bag still takes time to fill; she’s tapped her feet against the uncomfortable bed more than a hundred times by the time the pack fills with her dark blood. The man removes the needle and she shuts her eyes tightly when he brings the foul smelling cotton to dab at her wound. It stings badly but she refrains from crying. He covers the wound with a bandaid and sends her on her way, calling for the next Blood Bag as she exits the bright room.

The corridor beyond the room is dimly lit; there are cracks on the ground and walls and it smells like blood. She sees a few of  _ them  _ standing around the left side of the corridor, their red eyes glowing in the darkness, eyeing her. They are only here for the blood packs, not her, but she can see the hunger in their eyes. She knows that her warm blood is much better than the cold ones they receive from the packs filled by the Blood Bags.

She turns to the right before her body is paralysed by fear and walks down the dark corridor. It’s a long walk from the Blood Room to her cell; she has to walk through the corridor, cross a wide platform, go through yet another corridor and her cell is at the end of it. But, she has done this many times, so the walk doesn’t seem that long anymore. She just has to walk back and then she can play again.

She ignores the many doors lining the corridor and ignores  _ them _ staring at her as she passes by, keeping her eyes glued to her feet as they take her to her destination. They have rules to not touch Blood Bags, but this does not mean that they will not try and Blood Bag 0701 is not eager to find out what happens if they do. 

The wide platform is walked across quickly and she is soon in the third part of her journey back into her cell. Like the previous one, this corridor is dark and broken, but there are more doors than the first corridor.

Wailing fills her ears and she knows that another Blood Bag has been received. The room where Blood Bags come from is the first of the corridor, to her left but even if she stands on her toes she cannot see what is happening inside. All she knows is that someone will come out with a tiny Blood Bag in their arms, taking them somewhere she no longer remembers. She ignores the room and continues to the end of the hallway and turns to the right, glancing up to double confirm that it is indeed her cell; Cell 0525.

She stands at the door and waits for one of  _ them _ to open it. They are not allowed to open the door by themselves. It takes a few moments but he is walking up to her and soon opens the door for her.

A boy almost her age is already at the door to greet her with a big hug. His laughter rings in her ears and she gladly returns his hug. It is how they always greet one another, after they return from giving their blood.

Blood Bag 1220 stands barely taller than herself and he has dark hair like her. His eyes are always brighter when he sees her, and the same goes for herself. 

He grabs her left hand and practically drags her further into their small cell. It is brighter than the corridor, but the floor and walls still have small cracks on them. There is a single dirty bed for them to share, one toilet and sink and two small boxes filled with toys that they use to play together daily.

Blood Bag 0701 hops over to one of the toy boxes and pulls out a few toys. She does not know what they are, but they are colorful and pretty and smooth to hold and that is all that matters to them. When she turns back Blood Bag 1220 has taken out a few toys of his own and is waving them in her face, eager to start playing.

The games they play with their toys are full of nothing but giggles and joy. They smash the toys together and make odd noises when they collide, then laugh about it. It entertains them for long periods of time until their meal is pushed through a small flap at the bottom of their door.

They eat with their hands and Blood Bag 1220 attempts sneaks a portion of his meal into her plate when she is not looking. She is always hungry and the food portions are not enough, so he tries to do this as frequently as he can without her noticing, even if he is left a little hungrier at the end. Today, however, she grabs his hand that has the food he wants to give her and shoves it into his face, demanding that he eat his own portion of food. He obliges because it’s easier than having her pout and pull faces at him.

They wash their hands after eating, because the food stains on their hands will dirty the toys and ruin their colors. They play for a little while longer, before one of  _ them _ bangs on their door, telling them that it is time to go to sleep.

Blood Bag 0701 grabs Blood Bag 1220’s cheeks with her hands and presses her forehead onto his, gently rubbing their foreheads together. She always does this before they have to lie down on their bed and sleep. 

He holds her close to his small body and pats her back with his hand. He does this daily, without fail, until she falls asleep with a smile on her face. Only when her breathing is even and she no longer turns in her sleep does he shut his eyes to follow her to the land of dreams.

* * *

A loud bang is the first thing they hear in the morning. It means that it is time to wake up. They’ve grown accustomed to the noise, and it no longer scares them awake. Though, it sounds a little different today they brush it off and rise from their bed.

They hop off their little mattress and stand at the door, waiting for their meal to slide through the little flap.

It doesn’t come and they are growing hungrier. Blood Bag 0701 bends down to peer through the flap, finding nothing but a vision of cracked flooring beyond and hearing nothing but silence.

The silence doesn’t last long and soon their ears are being stabbed with screams and cries and wails. Their hands fly to their ears in an attempt to block out the terrifying screeches and they start to wonder where the screams are coming from.

Wailing from small Blood Bags is occasional for them, but this isn’t the sound of a small Blood Bag at all, nor is it the sound of someone yelling for a Blood Bag. This is louder, higher pitched, and filled with something that sends chills down their spines.

The two of them don’t bother with their empty stomachs anymore. They retreat to the bed they share and scramble to hide themselves under the blanket. The shrill screams grow louder and more frequent until every single moment consisted of nothing but those terrifying shrieks.

They’re shaking beneath the blankets, holding onto each other so tightly until their knuckles turned white. The screaming just won’t stop.

From outside, they can hear people crying, speaking words that they cannot understand while sobbing at the same time. Those cries have never been heard by the two of them before and it scares them even further, to the point of tears.

Multiple loud noises fire off at the same time and Blood Bag 0701 screams, cupping her ears with her hands and burying herself further into Blood Bag 1220’s shoulder. His teeth are clenched tightly and his whole body is trembling, his tears drip onto her head and his clothing.

It is silent after that, but they smell blood. It’s a scent that they know all too well, after all, but who did it come from? It obviously wasn’t from the two of them.

She lowers her hands from her ears and they emerge slightly from the blanket and stare at the door, vision blurry from their tears. Blood Bag 1220 retains his hold on her, his fingers clenching as much as they can, like if he were to loosen his hold she would end up smelling like blood, too.

For the briefest of moments they relax slightly. Whatever had happened outside their small cell is now over, though they really do not want to find out what had transpired beyond the door. The foul scent of blood and the screams prior just scream that it isn’t good.

Their moment of relaxation abruptly ends when the door handle is pushed down and their door creaks open slowly.

They hold their breath when they see a single eye staring at them through the now ajar door. The door opens further and a tall man with silver hair steps into their cell, dressed in all black and clutching a mask in one hand and something else in the other.

He raises his hand to speak into the strange object. They do not understand his words and they’re shifting away from him as far as they possibly can, until their backs are grinding against the cracked wall behind them. 

The man’s face shows no emotion as he approaches them. He hides the odd device into his pocket and after doing so reaches out to them with his now free hand. 

It’s getting closer and closer and they can do nothing but tremble in their place while desperately trying to get further away from this stranger. The stronger scent of blood from beyond the open door seems to drive fear into their hearts like the needle they are pierced with frequently.

The man pauses for a moment, then flips his hand around, offering for them to hold onto him. He nudges his hand closer to them when they don’t take it.

More words they can’t understand, but he sounds urging. When they fail to respond to him he sighs and retracts his hand, then reaches into his coat and pulls out a toy for one of them to take.

Blood Bag 0701 is the one to take it after a few moments of staring at it. Toys couldn’t hurt her, so she had accepted it. The man extends his hand again and this time, she hesitantly reaches out to grasp onto one of his fingers.

Blood Bag 1220 grunts at her, his brows furrow and he doesn’t look happy at all. This man is a stranger, and not one of  _ them  _ and she is about to willingly go with him. There is no way to tell what this man wanted with them. He couldn’t risk their safety, especially hers. 

She looks at him, back towards the man, then at the open door. Common sense reminded her that only  _ they _ had permission to open the cell doors, and if it wasn’t one of them to open it, it meant that they were gone. This man is clearly not one of  _ them,  _ either. He does not have the red eyes that she associates  _ them _ with.

If  _ they _ were not here, they couldn’t continue living. Their meals were brought by those people, without them it would mean that they would eventually starve. But, if they went along with this man, they could still live on. He had been nice enough to offer her a toy, and isn’t forcing her out of the door like the others have done. Those two reasons, while minor, were enough to convince her that this is a man they could be safe with.

She’s made up her mind and grips the man’s finger with a tighter force. After nestling the toy in between the side of her chest and arm she reaches for Blood Bag 1220 and grasps his arm. She wouldn’t be taking denial from him and she made that very clear by tugging his arm until he relented. He loosens his hold on her so she can stand up and pull him off the ground as well.

The man nods and lifts himself off the ground, bringing the two children out of the door. 

The once gray, cracked flooring and walls outside their door have been stained red. Even the dim light is now shining the colour of blood. More men they do not recognise stand outside, staring at them as they passed by, eyeing them with an emotion they could not yet understand. 

One of them approaches and takes out two thin blankets from a small bag he carries. He drapes them with the blanket, one each, making sure to cover their heads as well.

Blood Bag 1220 turns his head when he feels someone tearing his hand away from her. But by the time he’s turned around she is already in the man’s arms, being carried off somewhere and she is screaming for him.

The man who draped him in the blanket picks him up, cradling him with one hand on his bottom and the other on his back. Blood Bag 1220 is fighting back, kicking and screaming. He needs to go to her,  _ now _ . They have hardly ever been apart and now a stranger has her in his arms.

His kicks and punches do little to the man holding him. He is only vaguely aware that they are running, running somewhere that he has never been before. Only when he no longer smells the disgusting scent of blood does he cease his abuse on the man.

It is dark where they are and he can’t see much. He smells something that he somehow identifies with the colour green, hears little cricks in the space beneath him and ‘hoo’ sounds above him. 

The stranger carrying him bends down and sets him on the ground. Curiosity overrides his concern for Blood Bag 0701 and he kneels down in the area, letting his hands touch the floor beneath him. The ground is soft and mushy, and there are little things sticking out from it that tickle his little hands. When he brings his hands up his eyebrows raise when he finds that parts of the ground are stuck to his hands and he wipes them on his pants.

The man that brought him here is talking but he doesn’t understand and therefore does not register his words. It is not long before large arms are under his armpits and he is off the ground and in the man’s arms once again. They are running again, to where he does not know. A new emotion overrides his brief curiosity and he is letting the man carry him without issue now.

The up and down movements Blood Bag 1220 is subjected to somehow soothes him. He places his head on the stranger’s shoulder and tries to see past the darkness. There’s nothing there and nothing for him to do; he knows that his punches and kicks will not do anything so he can’t even look for Blood Bag 0701. He will look for her when this stranger lowers him onto the ground again and they will play with each other. 

The swaying motion causes him to yawn and he shuts his eyes. He will definitely find her later. When he is finally on the ground, he will find her.

* * *

Blood Bag 0701 wakes in an unfamiliar place. The walls are not gray and cracked but they are blue and smooth-looking. Her mattress, blanket and pillow are much softer than what she is used to, but, worst of all, Blood Bag 1220 is not with her.

She sits up in her bed and frantically looks around the room, eyes darting everywhere across the small space she is in; it isn’t her room since it’s so colourful and pretty. Without thinking she hops off the bed and onto the floor. It is cold but she turns and makes her way towards the one door she can see and opens it.

Outside she is greeted by a long hallway. It is different from the one she is used to; it’s bright and colourful and decorated with so many odd colours on the walls. She’s almost tempted to touch one of the decorations until she sees someone else standing outside the room she was in.

“Ah!” this person, the same height as her, yells. She has pretty brown hair and big eyes and she’s off screaming before Blood Bag 0701 can make any noise to stop her. She is left alone in this hallway, hearing the girl’s rushing footsteps and yells fade in the direction she’s run.

Blood Bag 0701, as confused as she is, shrugs it off and turns her attention to the walls, touching the colourful little decorations on it. It’s puffy and soft to the touch. She giggles and grabs onto it, pulling it off from the wall. She wants to show it to him when she finds him later on.

She raises her head when she hears more footsteps; there are many this time and they are fast and hurried. She takes a step back when she sees an adult emerge from one of the doors in the hallway, behind them are a crowd of children, some as tall as herself and some even taller than her.

Her head cranes to face the adult who bends down to meet her eye level. She runs a large hand through Blood Bag 0701’s hair and smiles at her, but she doesn’t return the smile. She looks past the adult and into the crowd of children and sees that he is nowhere to be found. Disappointed, she stares down at her feet as the adult tries to speak to her. She doesn’t understand and doesn’t respond.

She hears her sigh and then she looks up. The adult’s eyes dart to the right and she’s biting her lip. The children behind her do not say anything but look at her like she’s the most interesting thing in the world and she doesn’t understand why. Were they not the same as her?

Finally, the adult smiles and uses one finger to poke at Blood Bag 0701’s nose. She speaks a single word once, twice and thrice, each time growing slower.

“...Touuuuu...kaaaaa,” she mimics the adult. She stands up, hands clasped together and smiles down at her again. The adult turns to the crowd of children and speaks once more, and she is able to pick up one word from her; the very one that she had just managed to pronounce. 

The children stare at her and, almost all at once, speak. “Touka!”

One little boy points at her. “Touka!”

The adult above her nods her head. “Touka.”

Blood Bag 0701 is confused but she tries to mimic what the children did. She points to herself. “Touuuu… kaaa…?”

“Touka.” she smiles.


	2. An Old Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this chapter came out at a little over 9k words. It's the most I've ever written for a chapter and I honestly hope that I can keep writing like this because I feel like it actually contains content that isn't just the plot thrown at your faces like nothing. Hope you'll enjoy the chapter though, it's pretty wholesome in some parts.

Touka stares out of the large window in the bedroom she shares with fifteen other children. It’s been half a year since she had been brought into this place that she now calls home. The teachers and adults here tell her that this place is a special place, a home for children who were just like her; Blood Bags who’ve been rescued from the darkness that she remembers vividly.

In the six months she has been living here she has learnt many things; how to read, write and speak. Though her level of communication is still lower than average for her age. Still, she knows it is because she had never been taught when she was living as Blood Bag 0701. She is still learning and she has much to learn. 

The teachers tell her reading books is the best way to quickly improve her language skills but she finds them boring. She likes to spend her time playing with the other children or looking out of the window and at the people walking about outside. It is when she does the latter does her mind begin to wander.

She often wonders about Blood Bag 1220, the little boy who she shared a room with. She misses him dearly, especially when she is alone with her thoughts like now. She misses the way he would laugh happily whenever he saw her, how he would try to sneak portions of his food into her because he thought she didn’t get enough to eat, and how happily they would play with one another. 

Touka has other friends now, but they aren’t Blood Bag 1220. They can never replace the little boy who brought so much happiness to her when they were locked in that dreadful place.

She had tried asking about him many times. This ‘special place’ she calls home is not the only one in the country. On many occasions, the teacher promised to attempt to contact him, but she never sees her making a phone call. Her requests grew less and less frequent until she finally stopped when she realised that the teacher would not make any attempts to find Blood Bag 1220. On that day, she had kicked stones and threw sticks outside.

But, that doesn’t mean that she’s given up on finding him. She wants to see him again and she would do whatever it takes to see a dear friend once more.

“Touka!” 

Touka turns her head from the window and smiles at the little girl rushing towards her. Yoriko is looking to play again.

“Let’s play with Legos!” Yoriko chirps, grabbing onto Touka’s arm, almost dragging her off her bed in her excitement.

Touka giggles and allows herself to be pulled away. Her thoughts are not forgotten, though.

* * *

Blood Bag 1220. He remembers that identification clearly. It’s what he had been named for most of his life, though he now hates the identification, for it brings back too many unpleasant memories.

He was brought to some odd house by that stranger on that night. It’s filled with children his age and slightly older. He can tell, from the scar each of them have on the bend of their elbow, that they were former Blood Bags, too, like him.

They gave him a name; Ken. They taught him basic things such as how to speak, write, and read. He can communicate with other people now and not have to face the odd looks they gave him when all he could do at the time was blabber gibberish.

But even after he’s learnt to speak properly he doesn’t play or talk much with the children. He finds his interest in books and spends hours upon hours reading the ones that are available for him. This is what makes him somewhat of an outcast; the other children can read books like him but they would rather play games like hide-and-seek and tag. They don’t try to ask him to play when he’s reading and that’s because they know he does not like to be disturbed.

But, when he’s not reading or playing, he finds himself pondering about her; Blood Bag 0701.

That night, she had likely been brought to another location that is similar to his; a place for former Blood Bags. If that is the case, then she, like him, has been given warm food, fun toys and a warm bed to sleep on. 

He wonders if she’s eating enough. Is there a child there who would share their food like he had done when they were mere Blood Bags? He doubts so; the children where he is like the food too much to share. They can ask for seconds though, so he’s not too worried about how much she’s eating.

_ “Does she think of me?”  _ He asks himself. “ _ Does she think of the time we spent together?” _

Ken hopes so. He hopes that she’s made friends wherever she is, hopes that she isn’t lonely. He hopes that she still thinks of him, wondering where he is. 

He’s promised himself that he will find her, wherever she is. It is the first promise he’s made to himself and he intends to fulfil it.

* * *

Touka is only nine years of age when she is dressed in gray and brought into this room. All the other children from home that she comes with are roughly her age as well and they sit in a line, close to each other, in this large, empty room.

Their teacher had told them to sit there and wait for someone else to arrive so she takes her time to analyse her surroundings as more children pour in through the door, all of which she has not seen before as they do not belong in where she stays.

There really is nothing much. It’s a large room with a single, four-legged table in front of them, floor made with tiles that are large and dark gray in colour and cracked in some areas. The walls are tiled, too, cream coloured and stained in some spots, particularly at the bottom areas. She does not want to know what the stains are. 

It somewhat reminds her of her cell, somehow. Now that she is older and knows more about what is the norm she finds her years spent as a Blood Bag to be something very messed up. Earlier this year they had been taught about their former captors; a predator species known as Vampires. They feasted on blood and they apparently favoured young children’s blood more than adults, hence why she only saw children being Blood Bags, never any adults. 

She is brought out from her thoughts at the sound of the metal door slamming open, causing all of them to jump and some of them to yelp.

A man carrying a large briefcase steps in and he’s taller than any human Touka has ever seen. She is considered tall for her young age of nine and if she is standing she would have to crane her neck almost ninety degrees to look into the man’s eyes. 

He is dressed in a black suit and has a green tie tied around his neck. Teal eyes address every one of them briefly as he sets his briefcase next to him on the floor and Touka has to bite on her lower lip to stop herself from giggling at the man’s odd eyebrows. They’re curved in a hilarious way and some of the other children are trying to hold in their laughter, too.

“Young children,” his loud voice echoes through the empty room, instantly silencing any giggles. “my name is Koutarou Amon. Please, address me as Mr. Amon.”

He pauses to give them a moment to remember his name, then continues. “I’m sure you are all wondering why you are here.” He says. “All of you have had the terrible upbringing of being Blood Bags. You had your blood unwillingly taken from you and were abused when you refused. I would know, for I was once a Blood Bag, just as all of you were once.”

The children start murmuring and Amon clears his throat to recapture their attention.

“I know how you feel, and it is understandable. But, you can help to stop more children being born to be Blood Bags.”

The murmuring starts again. A child in the back yells, “How?!”

Mr. Amon places his briefcase on the table and cracks it open. “With these,” he says with confidence. He brings out two weapons; a long blade and a gun. He holds them in each of his hands and presents them to the children in the room, all of which have begun whispering and talking when the weapons are shown to them.

“Now,” Mr. Amon says loudly, garnering the attention of the children once more. “These don’t look much different from the ones you see in movies, but they are made with pure silver, the only material known to be deadly to vampires. Use any ordinary weapon on them and your weapon will break. Vampires have extremely durable skin that only silver can pierce through. Knowing that, if you are cornered by a vampire without a weapon made of silver you might as well give up. You have no chance of winning anymore.”

“Why only silver?” the same child yells.

“We don’t know.” Mr. Amon answers simply. “But it is what it is. These weapons are our only proper defence against the vampires.”

He places the weapons back into the briefcase and shuts it before placing his palms on the table. He lowers his head, exhales loudly, then looks up at them.“I will give you a choice. I am not forcing you to agree to this, but you can choose to live as a normal human being with a job and a family, grow old and die peacefully, or you can begin training with us. You will be trained properly in combat, speed and weapon usage, all to be used against vampires to eliminate them. Accepting a role in the elimination of vampires means that survival is never guaranteed for you.”

Mr. Amon pauses, his eyebrows furrowing and Touka can see his teal eyes grow sad and distant. “If you choose to live the life of a normal person, that is fine. If you want to live your life peacefully, you may walk out of that door now,” he points to the metal door. “But if you truly wish to end the creation and captivity of Blood Bags, stay where you are.”

Touka stares at the floor, running her finger across it in thought. She can hear her fellow children whispering to each other, some had started to cry and some sound eager.

_ “Living a normal life,” _ she thinks to herself. A normal life meant that she could study in schools until she would be old enough to get a job. Maybe she would find love somewhere and settle down to start a family. She would grow old and die, content with life, like what Mr. Amon said. It would be a life without fear of vampires and it would be a life where she would not have to risk her safety for anything.

But, she thinks back to her time as a Blood Bag herself. The pain of needles and the sad little meals she ate, along with the bad living conditions and the fear of the vampires looking down at her. 

Since living at that house, she’s come to understand the fact that children should play around and have fun with their friends. They weren’t meant to be born into a life of slavery. 

Touka looks up, finding a majority of the children standing up and walking out. Her vision is obscured by the many children that wander out and she once again thinks of the decision she will make. All these children will grow up to lead peaceful lives, so what is stopping her from joining them? She will not be blamed for the choice she makes.

But, there is something preventing her from standing up and walking out. It’s like a heavy weight attached to her legs, refusing to allow her to stand. Visions of children with sad expressions on their faces and a lack of light in their eyes bombard themselves in her head and a clear decision comes to her head, even though she is a child herself.

There are only less than thirty children left and it’s quiet. The once filled room is now empty and cold and she can feel the heaviness in the room.

“I will give you one last chance,” Mr. Amon says but he sounds hopeful. His body leans forward against the table. “Walk out now and you will live a life of peace, free of violence and trauma. Stay and you will be subjected to harsh training to prepare you for your inevitable battles against vampires.”

Three children stand and walk out. 

Touka turns her head around to count the number of children left. A total of nineteen children are left sitting in the room, all of which are also counting how many are left within this now empty room.

“Please, come over,” Mr. Amon says quietly. His voices echoes throughout the now largely empty room.

The children glance at each other before they stand shakily on their feet and approach the table.

Once all nineteen of them are front and centre, Mr. Amon sighs. “I’m so sorry. Us former Blood Bags and the government are the only ones who know of the existence of vampires. The public does not know of them and it is best that they do not. Even if we gave you a choice, we are selfishly using you to fight when all you should be doing now is playing with your friends.”

His words are an echo of Touka’s earlier thoughts;  _ children should be playing with their friends. _

A little girl behind Touka pops a question. “What about the rest of us that walked out? They know of vampires and they’ll be living normally.”

“We make them forget. They’ll be moved elsewhere from your previous home to be separated from the younger ones who still have memories as Blood Bags, and they’ll think they’re just orphans in an orphanage. They will have no memory of their time as a Blood Bag, neither will they remember this offer of mine.” Mr. Amon says gently. “I thank you for your sacrifice. You will struggle a lot in this lifetime, and the vampires will likely not be eradicated in your life, but you can still reduce their numbers and because of that, I thank you once again for your sacrifice.”

* * *

Touka is allowed two days in her home. She is allowed those two days to spend as much time as she can with her friends and to say goodbye to them. Out of all the children in her home, only she is the one who has decided to fight. She packs her cup, toothbrush, two spare sets of clothes and undergarments, and a set of pajamas in a bag her teacher provided for her. She is dressed in a plain blue skirt that touches her knees, black pants and small sneakers before she is due to leave.

Her friends are crying when it is time for her to leave. They ask if she cannot stay and ask why she has chosen to fight. She’s too choked up with tears to be able to respond to them, so she walks up to each of them and hugs them tightly to herself, then tearfully waves goodbye to the younger children and the ones she isn’t too close with.

Mr. Amon is the one to lead her out of home and into a black vehicle. It is barely light out now and she hasn’t bothered checking what time it is but she enters the car anyways. In the vehicle he thanks her again, and apologises again as well.

“Because we and the government are too scared of the public we have to use your bitter memories to motivate you to help us,” Mr. Amon says bitterly. “Children should be children. All they should be thinking about is playing with their friends, but I am still grateful for you, Touka.”

She nods her head because she doesn’t know what to say in this situation and keeps her gaze out the tinted windows. The entire car ride to wherever they are going is silent and uncomfortable. She wishes that the driver would play some music, she didn’t even care what kind.

When the car finally arrives Touka is surprised to find that it is a tall building. It is dyed with many colours in a nice pattern and there are even little flower and animal drawings on some of the windows. Not what she had been expecting at all.

“It’s only a coverup,” Mr. Amon says as if reading her mind. “We are also an adoption centre for all your friends your age who think they are orphans now. They should have forgotten everything about Blood Bags by now.”

“You made them forget me as well?” Touka asks, feeling a depressing coldness clutch at her heart.

Mr. Amon shakes his head and offers a sad smile. “No. They believe that you’ve been adopted by someone.”

“Oh.” Touka says sadly, turning away from Mr. Amon. At least it’s better than them completely forgetting about her.

“Come along.” Amon tells her. She follows him into the colourful building. 

The interior is almost the same as the exterior. It is still colourful and there are messy drawings done by children pasted on the walls. In front of her a counter and behind it a woman. The woman, a pretty blonde, glances up for a moment.

“Ah, Mr. Amon,” she greets then looks down at Touka. “Oh… I see…”

The woman gives her wry smile, the same one Mr. Amon had flashed at her a few times before. Touka is suddenly thinking if her decision was the right one; not because she is suddenly frightened about training to fight vampires, but because she doesn’t like their smiles that show her pity and sadness when she was the one who made the decision to come here. If anything, she would like to be spared those looks.

The woman returns to her computer and clicks around with the mouse. A few moments later she leans over the counter to hand a card to Touka.

“It’s your room key,” Mr. Amon says to her. “You will be spending most of your time in our facility, after all.”

He motions for her to follow him and she does so without question. They walk past the counter and into a small lift at the very back of the little building, which is so tiny that she almost mistakes it as just being part of the building’s design. When she turns around she sees the woman at the counter waving her goodbye with that same smile. She doesn’t wave back and instead looks at her shoes.

The lift is tall enough to hold Mr. Amon’s impressive height but not large enough to give them much space. Touka can only take three steps in the lift, from the door to the back of it, before she is unable to walk further. 

The lift has no windows and the ride down is slow, at least to her. Mr. Amon does not speak and neither does she as they descend down to who knows where.

The lift makes a ‘ding’ sound and Touka knows they have arrived. The lift doors open and she actually has to squint from how bright her surroundings are. 

The area she is in is almost completely white. From the long rounded ceiling to the wall tiles and even the few tables and chairs she can see from where she is standing. Only the floor is a dark gray colouring, with stripes of black on every other tile. The area has many doors connecting to it on both sides and the people walking about look like ants from where she is.

“This is the Main Lobby.” He says, then points to a rounded counter with a few people inside. “That’s the Information Counter. Look for them if you need anything, then the first corridor to your right is where your room is,” Mr. Amon points to the first large door on the right. “There will be other children in the other rooms, so try to make a few friends, alright?”   


She absentmindedly nods her head as she stares at the corridor Mr. Amon pointed to. This place is now her new home. She hopes she can get used to it as soon as possible because she is already starting to feel homesick.

Mr. Amon leads her to the corridor and it reminds her of the dark hallway she used to walk through when she was younger. Coincidentally, her room is also at the end of the hallway. She thinks back to when she was a Blood Bag, how her only friend at that time would greet her so happily when she entered their cell. It is somewhat nostalgic and she smiles at the memories of playing with him. Briefly, she wonders where he is now and how he is doing.

“Just tap your room card here,” Mr. Amon points at the little device next to her door that has a portion of it glowing red; the place where she has to tap her card. “We will give you four days to get to know your surroundings and make a few friends. I’m sorry that we can’t give you any more time to adjust to your new home.”

With that, Mr. Amon gives her a nod of his head and walks out of the corridor, his figure never wavers as he leaves the child he will eventually train to be a hunter, and if she sees it that way, a murderer.

Touka takes her room card and taps it to the device like Mr. Amon said. It gives a ‘click’ sound and her door is open. She enters quietly and shuts the door behind her. She gives herself a few minutes to look around her new room.

It is rather plain. Smooth, ash-gray walls and a wood tiled floor, drawers and shelves, along with a single air conditioner and a door to a bathroom, but what really catches her eyes are how there are two beds. They each are metal framed with a headrest at the back. Touka picks the bed on the right to be hers and glances at the other bed.

So, she will have a roommate with her. Her mind wanders to how her roommate will look like. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would they be noisy or quiet? Would they make jokes or will they be stone-faced?

She hopes it’s a girl. She had never gotten along well with boys as much as she had with Blood Bag 1220. She wonders if he had made the same decision as her, but if he didn’t she would understand. From what Mr. Amon told her she would probably end up as an old friend that was adopted in his mind, even though they lived in separate locations.

The door clicks as she is placing her spare clothes in the drawer and she snaps her head towards the door, ready to see who will be her roommate.

Time seems to stop for her when her eyes land on her roommate. Her lips part from the shock and she drops her spare shirt on the ground. The young boy who has just entered the room seems equally as shocked as she is, his emotions a mirror of her own.

The same jet black hair and silver eyes that greeted her every time she went back to their cell are now right in front of her. She should move but her legs are frozen in place and she doesn’t know what to say.

He is the first to react. He blinks hard then a wide grin forms on his face, then he drops his little bag and suddenly he’s running towards her and wraps his arms around her tightly. She tears up as she shakily wraps her arms around his torso to return the hug.

“It’s you!” He cries happily. The door shuts quietly behind them and Touka is laughing as her tears threaten to spill over. “It’s really you!”

He peels himself away so he can get a better look at her. She beams at him and he can’t help but hug her once more. After three years and he’s finally found her…

“I didn’t think you would be here,” he admits to her and she can hear the smile in his voice. “I always thought you were too gentle…”

Touka snorts at his words but says nothing. They stay in that position for a while longer before they break apart with huge smiles and tears rolling down their faces.

He hurriedly wipes his tears away. “So surprising, though! I never thought we would be in the same room, uh…”

They both realise this at the same time; they don’t know each other’s names. For their whole lives they’ve known each other as Blood Bag 0701 and 1220 respectively. 

“What’s your name?” They blurt out at the same time. Touka purses her lips and her eyes go wide while he starts laughing again. 

“You go first,” the boy says, still laughing heartily.

She giggles and he realises that he’s missed her laughter. “Touka. My name is Touka.”

He nods at this. “Ken.”

“Well, Ken,” she says matter-of-factly. “I’m taking this bed, so you take the other one.”

Ken raises his hands up in mock surrender. “Alright, fine, fine.”

He plops himself onto the opposite bed and looks at her. “It’s really been too long,” he says with a sad smile. “Look at us now. We can speak to each other now rather than just blab.”

Her memories take her back to a time when they would scream nonsense at each other and she smiles at the memories. “Yes. At least now we can understand each other, right?”

“Yup.”

It is a comfortable silence after that. Touka continues to neatly pack her spare sets of clothes in the drawer on her side of the room and she hears him do the same with his drawer. The drawer is so empty with her two sets of spare clothes and one set of pajamas.

“Have you eaten?” he asks after he has packed his clothes. “I don’t think you’ve eaten with how early they came to collect you.”

Touka shuts her drawer. She shakes her head and remembers that the sun had just started to rise when Mr. Amon picked her up. It had been too early for a proper breakfast to be given to her so she had eaten a small slice of toast before her tearful farewells. Now, at the mention of food from him her stomach growls just on time. She looks away with a faint blush as Ken laughs at her once again.

“We can ask around,” he offers and rises from his bed. “They won’t let us go hungry. Probably. Come on, let’s go.”

She accepts his offer and they both exit their room. Up the hallway there are other children moving into their rooms, each being guided by an adult. They make eye contact for the briefest of moments as acknowledgement before they hop off towards the nearest unoccupied adult.

“Ah! Mr. Yomo can help us.” Ken tells her as he points to a man in the mass of people wearing all black with hair so gray it almost looks silver. Somehow the man seems familiar to her…

He grabs her hand and pulls her along to Mr. Yomo who has turned around at Ken’s calling.

“Young Ken,” Mr. Yomo greets with a curt nod, then glances at Touka. “What is it? Do you not like your roommate?”

Ken shakes his head quickly while gripping Touka’s hand tighter. “No, no. Just that the both of us are hungry and… well…”

Mr. Yomo cuts him off with a raise of his hand. “Follow me.” he says before walking off. The two children follow him, keeping two steps behind him as best as they can with their much shorter legs.

“Mr. Yomo was the one who brought me here,” Ken says, not releasing her hand. “Do you remember him? He was also the one who brought us out from that place three years ago.”

“Oh…” Touka drawls, finally recognising the man. “Well, I thought he looked familiar to me.”

“Right? I didn’t remember him until he told me this morning.”

The elderly looking man brings them down the Main Lobby and into a hallway at the end of it. During their walk there they had taken their time to marvel at just how large the entire underground facility is. They don’t fail to notice that there is an escalator leading down further. It piques their curiosity and they begin discussing on what could be down there and just how deep it could go.

This hallway has the same doors in the same arrangement as their hallway does. The only difference is the double doors at the end of it instead of a water cooler. Mr. Yomo pushes the doors open then stand at the side for the children.

“Wow,” Ken can only say.

It’s a massive cafeteria that can rival the size of the Main Lobby. There are many stores selling all types of food and the smell of it only makes them hungrier. Hundreds of people are moving about the cafeteria, bringing trays of food to tables or placing them on the tray return.

“This is stupid.” Touka huffs.

Ken shoots her a questioning look. How could such an amazingly large cafeteria be stupid?

“Why is that?” Mr. Yomo chuckles. It’s the first time Ken has heard him laugh in any capacity but he focuses on what Touka wants to say.

“I’m pretty sure our hallway doesn’t have a big door that goes to the cafeteria. I’m saying it’s stupid because we have to walk so far away to this place when there are some people that turn and, boom, they’re already able to get their food.”

Mr. Yomo’s lips quirk up in an amused smirk. “The food here is free for you children until you’re adults. Enjoy it while you can.” he says before turning and leaving.

The cafeteria is bustling, even at this early time. They stand there for a while, scouring the cafeteria with their eyes to find a place to sit down. The only reason why they can actually see much of anything is because they’re standing at the top of the staircase now. Once they descend from the stairs all the adults will probably be like walls in a maze to them.

After about a minute Touka rolls her eyes and says “Screw it,” as she pulls Ken and walks down the stairs. Even if they found an empty seat from where they stood it would have been taken by someone else by the time they reached it. 

They stand in the wide gaps between the tables and some adults gaze at them as they walk by. They move too fast for Touka to see their emotions but she has no doubt that it’s pity for them that will be displayed in their eyes. 

“Hey!” a loud voice shouts through the noises of people talking. They and a few adults turn in the direction of the voice.

Like her first meeting with Mr. Amon, Touka has to suppress her laughter. The man calling them over has long, puffy bangs that split down the middle of his face and make it look like a badly done wig. She bites her lip to stop herself and Ken seems to be doing the same.

“C’mere,” the man yells while waving them over with his hand. They approach him while trying to calm their urge to giggle at his odd hairstyle.

“My colleague and I are done eating,” he gestures at a large man sitting opposite him. “You two can have our seats.”

“Th—Thank you,” Ken manages to cough out. Somehow both men can’t tell that he’s on the verge of bursting out laughing.

Both men smile at them and take off. Only when the two of them have taken their seats and the two men are far away enough that they start their laughter. Touka’s stomach hurts from how much she’s laughing and Ken’s cheeks grow red and he’s wheezing out his laughter. It takes a full minute for their laughter to die down and even then they’re still letting out giggles every five seconds.

“Okay, okay,” Touka wheezes. “You… you go get your food first. I’ll wait here.”

He raises an eyebrow at her but skips off anyway. He returns about two minutes later, which is surprising considering how many people are in the cafeteria now.

“They’re letting kids go first,” he explains as he sets a plate consisting of a massive hamburg steak and rice on the table. His utensils come clattering on the table next. 

Touka nods her head and jumps out of her seat without a word. She heads toward the store that sells beef stew and quickly stands in line. 

The adult female in front of her turns to look at her. “Go right ahead, little girl. You kids need to get your food quicker, eat more and grow faster.” she says warmly, sidestepping to allow Touka to jump in front of the other adults.

“Thank you,” she says to all the adults she passed by in line, not forgetting her manners. Soon she is holding onto a tray with a piping hot bowl of beef stew and rice and making her way back to where Ken sat.

She frowns when she sees that he hasn’t touched his food at all. Seeing her furrowed eyebrows and where she’s looking he quickly speaks. 

“I didn’t want to eat without you,” he says, his head tilts down when she sets her meal on the table. “We used to eat at the same time when we were younger.”

A feeling of warmth spreads through Touka’s chest and into her entire body. She can’t help but smile at what Ken just said.

“Well, I’m here now. So, let’s eat.” She says simply, still smiling from his words.

* * *

They leave the cafeteria once they are done eating. Of course, they return their trays like decent human beings before they go. 

However, once they return to their shared room they realise that there is nothing for them to do. Their room is about as empty as an abandoned house and they see no forms of entertainment anywhere in the Main Lobby.

“Mr. Amon told me we should try to make friends with the others,” she tells Ken as she swings her legs over the bed frame. “Maybe it’ll be fun?”

He raises his eyebrows at her and his eyes dart to the right for a moment in contemplation. It’s true that they have nothing much to do, and socialising a little would do them some good. He still shudders from the memories he has of being younger and unable to socialise since she had been the only human being he spent time with up until the point he had been rescued.

“Alright, then. Let’s go.”

They hop off their beds and exit their rooms, making sure to take their cards with them so they won’t be locked out. They knock on the nearest door which is just opposite theirs and wait.

It takes a few moments of waiting before the door slowly opens and a single purple eye stares at them. The door opens fully and it’s a boy their age standing there fidgeting with his hands. His hair is an odd lime green colour and he’s shorter than both Touka and Ken. Is he actually nine years old?

“H-Hello…” the boy says quietly, now fidgeting with the sleeves of his dark jacket. “Can I help you?”

It’s clear to both of them that this boy is one nervous train wreck. But Touka beams at him. “Hi! Mr. Amon said we should get to know our neighbours, so…”

The short boy gazes at them curiously before he steps aside. “Won’t you come in? It’ll be easier for us to talk if you’ll come in.”

_ “What’s the harm?” _ They think as they agree and step into the room. It’s hardly any different to theirs. The only differences are the placement of where the bathroom door is and how there's a pile of curled up blankets on one of the beds.

“Tha—That’s my roommate,” the boy says nervously, waddling towards the mess of blankets. “Her name is Saiko. Oh! I’m Rio, by the way.”

“I’m Ken, and this is Touka.”

“Saiko,” Rio calls out in a hushed whisper while shaking the bundle of blankets. “Saiko, wake up! Some of the other children came to visit us!”

A chubby arm emerges from the blankets followed by a head light blue curls. The colour of her hair is a bigger shock to the both of them than Rio’s hair. “Hunnnh…?” Saiko groans as she sits up. She rubs her eyes, getting rid of whatever sleep is remaining before sitting up to look at her guests with big blue eyes.

“Oh!” Saiko says happily, not caring about the tangled mess her hair is currently in. “Hi there! My name’s Saiko. Who’re you two?”

“I’m Ken, and this is Touka.” Ken repeats, performing the same gestures he had done when he had introduced Touka and himself to Rio.

Rio plops himself down on his bed while Saiko smooths put her unruly curls. “Sit down and let’s talk!”

They both choose to sit on Rio’s bed, which he had no objections about.

“You’re so small,” Touka starts the conversation by speaking to Rio. “Why’d you join?”

“Ah… well…” Rio rubs the back of his neck when all three pairs of eyes are on him. “Actually I had an older brother when I was a Blood Bag. Uh, we weren’t related or anything but I saw him like one. Then one day he went to the Blood Room and never came back.” He laughs nervously yet sadly. “Look—Looking back on it after I was rescued he was probably killed... I joined because I just didn’t want kids to end up like… like my older brother…”

“Oh.” is all Touka can manage. She had no idea that he had lost someone important to him and now she feels bad for bringing up an unpleasant memory for him.

“I—I know I don’t look like much,” he perks, changing the topic. “But I want to help the Blood… the children. I think I can change myself by saving them…”

Ken nods vigorously. “Yeah, I want to save them, too. Touka does as well.” He places an arm around Touka’s shoulder. “What about you, Saiko?”

“Hmm?” Saiko drawls, sounding like she hadn’t been paying much attention. “Same reason as you guys, I guess. I didn’t like my life as a Blood Bag so why allow babies to have that life as well?”

Touka thinks back to what Mr. Amon had said.

_ “Because we and the government are too scared of the public we have to use your bitter memories to motivate you to help us.” _

It rings true for the four of them, and probably for all of the children that had agreed to fight against the vampires. Touka does wonder if she will end up like Mr. Amon one day; trying to persuade children as young as her current self to fight a dangerous battle they would likely not leave alive, using their trauma to motivate them to join.

“But what were your numbers?” Rio asks, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Mine was 101911.”

“Wow, that’s a big number,” Touka replies. The other two nod their heads in agreement. “Mine was 0701, and my teacher made it as my birthday, so my birthday is the first of July.”

“That’s really close to my birthday!” Rio says excitedly, now having a big smile plastered on his face. “Mine’s on the twenty-ninth of June!”

“I have mine on December twentieth. People say I’m lucky because it’s so close to Christmas.” Ken says. “It’s also like Touka’s, since my number was 1220.”

“Aw,” Saiko sighs. “Mine’s no special. It’s on the fourth of September.”

“That’s not so bad,” Ken tells her. “I think that’s Teacher’s Day for some places.”

“Teacher’s Day!” Saiko almost explodes, startling all three of them. She puffs her cheeks out as she continues. “Who wants to have a birthday on a day for teachers?! It’s like I’m the teacher! And I’m too young to be one!”

This sends them into a flurry of giggles. They fall into lighthearted conversations after this, talking about everything and nothing at the same time.

At one point Saiko reveals that she’s brought toys from her previous home and they end up playing house with those toys. They are not aware of how much time has passed until their stomachs start to growl. Saiko’s stomach growls particularly loud and they have a good laugh about that.

They leave the toys on the floor and head for the cafeteria. This time it’s not as crowded as compared to earlier when Ken and Touka went, but it’s still a little difficult to find a seat, and for four people this time.

Saiko is left to sit where they planned to sit while the other three left to get their trays of food, to which she ended up grumbling about even though they came back in a matter of minutes. She grumbles as she leaves to get her food but her cheeks are puffed out again and they can’t help but laugh.

Rio notices that it’s past six in the evening, so they’re eating dinner now. They really had spent too much time playing with Saiko’s toys, but it had been fun and that was all that mattered to them. Their dinner is polished off quickly and they retreat back to their respective rooms, thinking it would be best for them to rest so that they could play again tomorrow.

“I like them,” Touka tells Ken as they enter their own room. She switches on the air conditioning with the remote. “I want to play again tomorrow.”

“If Saiko can even get up,” Ken laughs as he digs through his drawer, pulling out a fresh set of clothes and undergarments. “I’m going to shower first, okay?”

“Yeah, that’s alright.” She answers. It’ll give her time to actually process what had happened today.

When he disappears into the bathroom she flumps down on her bed and stares at the ceiling. What a day it’s been for her.

In this day alone she had left her home and friends and moved into a new home, reunited with her childhood friend and made two new friends. Thinking about it like this does not make it seem like much but her young brain is almost at its limit of the day.

She sits up on the bed and stares at the bathroom door. Never did she expect to reunite with him like this. Looking at it now it’s rather nostalgic; the two of them being roommates once more, like when they were younger. 

Touka recalls the memories of when they would sleep next to one another. She remembers the happy noises they would make at each other and she fondly remembers how he would pat her back until she fell asleep. 

She hears the sound of the bathroom door clicking open and she turns to look at Ken, who is dressed in blue striped pajamas. “That was fast.” she remarks.

Ken shrugs before ruffling his hair dry with a towel. “They gave us the shampoo and towels and stuff. Also the water is hot, too.”

Touka perks at the mention of hot water. She’s always enjoyed hot showers and she would never pass one up. This time is no exception. With a few quick steps she’s taken her pajamas with her and skipped off into the bathroom to enjoy her hot shower.

The bathroom is small. There’s one sink with a cup on the side and a mirror above it, one trash can, one toilet and the shower is exposed. No shower curtain or anything. She doesn’t particularly mind this but the shower area is too close to the toilet for her liking. Nevertheless she strips herself to start her shower.

There’s a shelf embedded into the wall. A bottle each of shampoo, conditioner and body wash is provided for them, along with a small note, slightly wet note that tells them to seek the people from the Information Counter if they need a refill of the bottles. She rolls her eyes; couldn't Ken have just told her what was on the note then threw it away? Soggy paper is one of her worst enemies.

She picks up wet note and tosses it into the trash bin then starts the water. It practically melts her skin but she loves it.

She takes her time showering and by the time she’s done her skin has turned red and she’s feeling a little lightheaded. A splash of water from the tap to her face cools her face down a little bit she knows that she has to get something cold to drink soon or she’ll actually pass out. She quickly dries her body and puts on her pajamas then opens the door.

The steam from the bathroom flows out and into the room itself and she hears Ken say: “God, how hot did you get the water to be? Looks like a sauna in there now.”

“Too long,” Touka tells him while drying her hair. 

“Wow, your face is so red,” he comments, sitting up. “Want me to get you some water?”

“Please.”

He leaps out of bed and takes a step towards the door before pausing. “Uh… where’s your cup?”

“In my bag, I think. The biggest zip.”

Her bag is on the floor next to her bag and close to the door. Ken fumbles through her bag for a second and pulls out a blue plastic cup before he makes a beeline for the door. She shakes her head at his speed. He doesn’t have to run when it’s not so serious. Probably.

The air conditioner is on and it’s cooling her body. She sits on her bed and waits for the door to open. A few seconds later Ken emerges from the outside and thrusts her cup of water into her hands, spilling a few drops on her pajamas.

“Drink up,” he tells her. 

She downs the cup without stopping, not realising how thirsty she had been until the first sip of water touched her lips. He sits himself next to her and watches her finish the last drop of water in the cup.

“Better?”

Touka nods her head. “Thanks.”

“You shouldn’t spend so much time in the shower next time,” he reprimands her. “in hot water, too. What if next time you stay in for too long and something bad happens to you? What if I’m not in the room to help you when something bad happens?”

She nods her head again. “Yes, yes. I understand. I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Good.”

A book with a bookmark in between its pages on Ken’s bed catches her eyes and her face twists. “You read?”

“Oh, yeah. I like to read. It’s fun.”

Touka blanches at him. “I hate reading. It’s too boring to just read words. I would rather play toys with Rio and Saiko again.”

Ken gapes at her, looking at her as if she’s sprouted another head. “But reading is so fun!” He protests. “You can imagine so much stuff from the words and it’s so fun!”

They go back and forth in a lighthearted argument. Touka continues to say how books were bad while Ken says the opposite. Somehow it ends with him reading the book to her from the beginning. 

“...the beast lunges at her, and everything goes black.” Ken finishes. He has read her roughly a third of the book, and halfway through he had to go refill a cup of water from the water cooler right outside their door so he could continue reading. 

“What happens next?” Touka asks eagerly, clutching her pillow to her chest. He chooses not to point out that she enjoyed the book, though he had been the one that read it to her.

Ken looks at the clock. It’s well past ten in the evening and he’s starting to grow sleepy. He places the bookmark in between the book’s pages and shuts it. “Tomorrow. It’s past ten now. We should go sleep.”

“Aw,” Touka groans but she grabs her cup and toothbrush and heads into the bathroom to wash up.

There’s a tube of toothpaste in the cup on the sink so she squeezes a small blob on toothpaste on her toothbrush, wets it with water and starts to brush her teeth. Ken’s actions are a mimic of hers when he steps in a few moments later. 

“Yeer rook schupit.” Touka says through the white foam the toothpaste produces.

Ken shoots her a questioning look while brushing. He clearly did not understand what she just said.

Touka holds up her hand and continues to brush her teeth for a while longer before she spits in the sink and turns to him. “I said that you looked stupid.”

His eyes narrow and he spits in the sink. “Shuddap,” he grunts before he rinses out his mouth. “You looked just as stupid as I did.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

She pokes his side, where she knows for certain that he is ticklish. As expected, he lets out a giggle and he attempts to do the same to her. She narrowly dodges his finger by bolting out of the bathroom and diving onto her bed. She quickly shields her body using the blanket, as if it would stop him from retaliating.

Ken is tickling her sides through the blanket and she squeals and shrieks at his onslaught. Her hands emerge from the blankets to bat his hands away and it just makes everything worse because her hands were the only things holding up the blanket around her.

“I give!” She yells, laughing hysterically, still trying to pull his hands away while defending her sides at the same time. “I give, I give!”

Ken finally stops and he’s breathing hard from the effort he had exerted. “So you admit you looked as stupid as me.”

Touka’s stomach hurts from laughing so much and she holds up a hand to ask him to wait as she catches her breath. “Fine… I admit.”

Satisfied with her answer he sits himself down on her bed. All the energy he had displayed only a few moments ago seems to have faded into nothingness when he lowers his head slightly, seemingly avoiding her gaze.

She finds this odd. “Ken?”

“I…” he starts, then clams shut, then he starts yet again, never once looking up. “Can.. can we still share a bed? We always used to when we were younger…”

It wasn’t what she expected to fly out of his mouth and though her head has not fully registered his question she gives her answer. “Sure!”

She has to fight the urge to slap her hand to her mouth. Her response had sounded way too eager and she isn’t sure if that’s a good or bad thing. But, Ken seems happy about it. His face breaks into a wide smile before he lunges towards his bed and grabs his pillow. He sets it next to hers then stand by her bed with an unsure expression on his face.

“Which side do you want?” He asks.

“Hmm,” she contemplates. “I’ll just take the inside, ‘cause your pillow is on the outside.”

She presses her head onto the pillow. It’s soft and comfortable, better than the one she had in her previous home. Ken hobbles from his spot next to her bed to the light switch next to the door. In the darkness she can hear his careful footsteps treading through the room.

A loud thump rings in her ears and she can hear Ken give a cry of pain. She laughs at this, knowing full well that he’s hit his toe against her bed frame. “Karma.”

“Shut up.”

The bed slants down a little where he’s supposed to sleep so she scoots back to give him a bit more room. A warm hand is patting about her face, and it irritates her.

“What are you doing?” She demands, batting his hand away.

“Seeing where your face is,” he replies, returning his hand to her face. “Oh, you’re facing towards me.”

“Would you stop that? It’s annoying,” she grumbles, this time smacking his hand.

“Ouch.” He says though he doesn’t sound hurt at all.

She feels his hand raise again and she’s about to yell at him when he touches her back. There it is again; the lulling pats on her back that soothed her to sleep all the time when she was younger. He still remembers.

“You’re still doing this,” she says quietly, enjoying the pats as they bring her back to her memories for the hundredth time today. 

“You don’t like it?” He shifts himself so his other arm is pillowing his head. 

“No. It’s nice.” she admits, her voice a whisper now. Then she asks: “Why did you do this so much when we were younger though?”

She feels the blankets shift. A shrug from him. “Dunno. Just felt like it and it became a habit.”

She giggles softly before a yawn overtakes her quiet laughter. She can’t see him in the darkness but she knows that his eyes are on her. He would always make sure she had slept before he did and nothing has changed about that.

“Goodnight…” she manages before her consciousness fades into the land of dreams.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine that this rewritten series will have a really inconsistent updating schedule. Only reason why I was able to push this 9k word chapter out was because I was so into writing it at 3 am in the morning, which costed me my sanity for the day (worth it) I also stupidly decided rewrite this on the day school reopened so there's that as well. Oh well.


	3. Training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I actually didn't plan for chapter 3 to come out like a month later, it really was going to be ready two weeks ago, but I felt that it was pretty shit so I rewrote the entire thing and it came down to a little over 5.5k words. So, with all that said I hope you enjoy this chapter.

On the very next day, Mr. Amon, Mr. Yomo, and a new adult they refer to as Ms. Mado took them out to buy any necessities they needed. There are twenty of them in the ten rooms in the corridor, and each of them were allowed to choose new sets of clothes and some toys to play with, all paid for by the facility itself.

Touka had purchased four sets of shirts and pants and undergarments, as well as a stuffed rabbit to cuddle with at night. Ken had bought a teddy bear; not to sleep with but more to play with, for some odd reason.

In the cafeteria now, Touka stuffs a spoonful of pudding into her mouth. “Training starts in three days…”

There are two other children who joined them for dinner; a young boy named Tooru, and the other Ginshi. Tooru has been in the middle of putting another spoonful of food into his mouth when Touka spoke up.

“I’m nervous…” he admits, setting his spoon down. “Training sounds really tough.”

“Meh,” Ginshi scoffs, scarfing down his food. “What’s th’ worst they can do to us? We’re only nine!”

Ken chews thoughtfully, then swallows before giving his reply. “They want us to be strong so they’ll probably make us train a lot. Get ready to be tired.”

Saiko groans and smacks her head on the table, her meal long finished and her tray already put back. “I don’t want to… training just sounds too tiring and I don’t like being tired.”

Touka and Rio sigh at Saiko’s behaviour. Sure, training their bodies didn’t sound very fun, but it would help them in the long run after they would come of age to aid the adults in freeing the Blood Bag children. 

Touka sets her utensils on her now empty plate and thinks about the training they would receive. They’ll probably make her lift weights. Or make her jump really high. Something along the lines of that, is what she thinks they’ll make them do.

“Maybe they’ll make us run until we drop,” Rio suggests and he shudders at his own words. Saiko sighs.

They fall into heated debate on what the training would be, ignoring the adults that try to speak to them in the midst of this discussion. Rio assumes the worst; running until they collapse and they have to lift heavy weights. Ginshi counters that they wouldn’t do that because they are only children. Ken argues that it would probably be something easy. Saiko has her face on the table, refusing to acknowledge that training would begin in a few short days. Their discussion ends after Tooru finishes his meal and they leave the cafeteria.

They enter their respective rooms and decide to not play with anyone tonight; they day’s shopping activities have tired them. 

Touka crawls onto her bed and cuddles the stuffed rabbit to her body. The two of them had already showered beforehand so they don’t have to now, but there’s really not much to do since the two of them are too tired to play, but not tired enough to sleep at this timing. 

Ken climbs into the bed after her. She doesn’t see him moving back into his bed anytime soon. 

He picks up the discarded book on the floor and flips to the page they had left off the night before. “Want me to read?”

* * *

The morning of their first day of training comes too soon, though their days prior had been spent on pretty much nothing but games and toys.

What they had not expected to happen was the blaring alarm that rang loudly throughout their room at exactly seven in the morning. Ken actually screams as he wakes and Touka has her heart beating faster than it had ever done before in her life.

“What is that?!” Ken screeches, cupping his ears. Touka does the same.

The alarm dies down almost immediately after Ken screamed his question. They slowly remove their hands from their ears, hovering them close in case the alarm blares again. After a few seconds of absolutely nothing, they deem it safe to relax.

“My ears hurt…” she complains. “Was that supposed to be an alarm…?”

“I think it was.” Ken says, sliding out of their shared bed. He stretches his body while Touka climbs out of the bed after him. His ears are still ringing from that awful alarm.

A knock on their door causes them to jump. Ken switches on the light and looks at Touka, then at the door, his eyes wide. Who would be knocking on their door this early?

Ken is closest to the door so he is the one who answers it. He pulls the door open slowly until it is just barely wide enough for him to peek through. It’s Ms. Mado.

He pulls the door wide open, aware that Touka is also looking at the adult before them curiously. Ms. Mado is holding a stack of clothing in her hands, a box of it next to her feet. 

“Take these,” she says, plopping them into Ken’s small hands. The pile of clothing is not heavy, but it is stacked so tall that he cannot see her anymore while he is holding them. “Wear these for today. Wait outside your room in an hour’s time, and eat light for breakfast.”

“Uh…” is all Ken can manage. He drops the stack onto the floor, seeing Ms. Mado now turn to Rio and Saiko’s door with another large stack of clothing in her hands. He doesn’t know what to say, so he shuts the door and stares at the pile before his feet. 

Touka saunters over and lifts a shirt and a pair of pants out from the messy pile. They’re both dark gray in colour and both made from the same dri-fit material. The shirt has a bird symbol smack in the middle of it, and Ken assumes that it is the facility’s mascot of some sort. The material is soft, though.

“You go brush your teeth first,” Touka says with a smile. She wants to try on this new clothing first. “I’m going to change into this.”

He gives her a curt nod before he disappears into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him so she can have some privacy. 

Touka strips herself of her pajamas and puts on the new clothing. It’s the same design for all of them, so it’s probably some kind of training uniform for them. She briefly wonders if the adults wear the same thing when they train themselves in their spare time.

In the background she hears Ken gargling his mouth with water before he knocks on his side of the bathroom door. “Are you done?”

“Yup. You can come out now.”

He takes one look at her and his eyebrows raise. “Looks good on you.”

“Thank you. Now you go change and I’ll brush my teeth. After that we can go get the others to have some breakfast with us.”

They’re done in the span of three minutes. They head out, Ken goes Tooru and Ginshi’s while Touka goes to Saiko and Rio’s. 

Touka knocks on the door and, surprisingly, it is Saiko who answers it. She is vigorously trying to comb down her messy hair and she is already dressed in the same uniform Touka is wearing.

“‘Morning…” Saiko says tiredly. “I hate that alarm.”

Touka gives her a bland smile. “Same. Is Rio done? We want to eat breakfast.”

Saiko seems to perk at the mention of food. “Mhm. He’s almost done. He’s just brushing his teeth now—Rio! Hurry up! Touka and Ken want to eat breakfast!”

A muffled response came from the bathroom, and a few moments later Rio came barreling out of the bathroom, his hair disheveled and purple eyes with a wild look. His head snaps towards the door and he gives a very awkward “Hi.”

Touka nods her head slowly, responding with a slow wave of her hand. Rio looks like a patient that just escaped from the mental asylum for some reason. 

“Ready?” Ken asks, now behind her with Ginshi and Tooru in tow. All three of them look equally tired with their half open eyelids and deadpan expressions. Touka thinks that she probably looks exactly the same, but as of now she can’t be bothered to care about how she looks at all because, damn, she is tired.

They begin their walk to the cafeteria and it’s strange seeing so little adults up and about at this time. The majority of the people that walk around are children their age and a few years older. It’s easy to see who are the ones who are the same age as them, as they all share the same tired expression as they do. 

It’s no different in the cafeteria, but this time there are some who are asleep on the table. It’s somewhat easy to see why they are tired but at the same time, it’s already seven in the morning. Usually the latest when most of them would wake would be nine or even ten in the morning. Perhaps it was because of the loud alarm that jarred them awake so suddenly.

They quickly find a seat, and it hadn’t been hard to find one, since not much people are up at this time. Tooru is the one to sit down so no one else can take their seats by accident while the other five lazily walk towards the stalls to get some food. 

The food being sold is much more different that what Touka normally sees. There’s no curry rice or udon or whatever; but there’s rolled eggs, natto, rice and even small grilled salmon available. She wants to have a hearty meal of egg and rice and maybe even the salmon, too, but Ms. Mado’s words to eat light ring in her head and she has to reconsider her choices.

She walks around the available stalls, eyeing the foods that are available to her, but won’t fill her up too much. In the end she settles on a bowl of miso soup and a small grilled salmon. When she goes to take a bowl of miso soup the man at the counter takes one look at her and frowns. “First training day?” he asks, pouring the soup into a bowl.

Touka nods her head as she reaches for the bowl. She sets it neatly on her tray before looking up at the man.

“Y’know what them adults say; don’t eat too much.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s possible that you could vomit,” he tells her. Her face deadpans at the thought of vomiting. “That’s why they tell you not to eat much. In fact, that bowl of soup and maybe a hard boiled egg is probably enough for a girl your age.”

Touka blinks. She’s not entirely sure what to say, so she gives the man a slight bow, a “thank you” and awkwardly walks off to go get that small piece of salmon before she makes it back to the table Tooru is at.

“Looks good,” Tooru comments as he rises from his seat, now able to go get his food as Touka sits down and gives him a nod.

She picks a small piece off the salmon and eats it. It’s lightly seasoned with salt and still warm; she finds herself wanting more of it. After a few bites she takes a sip of the miso soup and can’t stop herself from sighing at the taste. It’s salty and warm like the salmon, with a hint of sweetness within, too. There are even little tofu chunks floating around the soup that have been infused with its flavour.

Rio is next to return, followed by Ginshi, Ken, Saiko and then Tooru. Miso soup seems to be a popular choice amongst them all, but the fact that Saiko is drinking her miso soup with some jam bread is a bit off putting.

“I wanted more food,” Ginshi admits, stuffing a slice of rolled egg into his mouth and gnashing it with his shark-like teeth. “But the lady at the counter said I should eat less. Why’s that?”

“The man at the miso soup stall says we might vomit if we eat too much,” Touka answers. She’s done with her small, simple meal.

“Ew.” They grimace. 

Saiko finishes the last of her miso soup and places her tray back at the tray return station. She rests her chin on her hands and gives a loud and dramatic sigh. “It would be better if we could eat more… I’m still kinda hungry.”

“Same,” Touka admits. The little piece of salmon and a bowl of miso soup hadn’t been much for her, but she would rather stay hungry for a while than throw up.

It is half past seven when they leave the cafeteria. They have another half an hour to burn before they have to begin their first day of training and while they would normally play with Saiko’s toys, this time they didn’t even bother to touch them. 

“It can’t be so bad,” Rio says, fidgeting with his hands. He sounds like he’s trying to reassure himself more than the others. “We’re only nine years old… they won’t push us that hard, right?”

Ginshi leans his head against the bed frame, staring up at the ceiling. “I sure hope not. But if you think about it they probably will?”

“What do you mean?”

“We all seen vampires and heard about them, right?” Ginshi explains, craning his head up to look at the five of them. “They told us that vampires are wicked fast and strong, so they’ll probably train us to be like them.”

“But they also said vampire bodies are way tougher than ours,” Tooru says nervously. “What do we do about that?”

“Armour?” Ken suggests. It does seem like the most realistic case to him, and after his suggestion it is the same for the rest of them.

They fall into discussion of what their training could possibly be before it is time for them to go. When they open the door they already see Mr. Amon standing outside at the corridor’s opening, waiting.

“Line up in twos, please.” He says, his face showing absolutely no emotion, but his eyes are sad and conflicted. For Touka, it is obvious that he is thinking that they are to be pitied; “ _Children should be children. All they should be thinking about is playing with their friends.”_ She recalls his words from only a few days ago.

All twenty of them from this corridor assemble within a few moments, paired in twos and in two perfect lines. When Mr. Amon is certain that all twenty of them are present he asks for them to follow him. 

He leads them into the larger corridor on the left side of the Main Lobby. It is hardly different from the corridor housing the room Touka shares with Ken, only larger, longer and colder. There are many doors leading to other rooms and if she stands on her toes when they pass by she can see some older children training inside with wooden swords. They’re all sweaty and flushed, but they don’t seem tired in the slightest.

When they stop they are at the end of the corridor, the location with the double doors. 

“Your training for the next few months will be held here,” Mr. Amon says, his voice emotionless like his face. “Training for all of you starts every morning, at eight. You are all excused for being late today as I had to show you the route here, but do not be late in the future or you will have to face consequences.”

He pushes one of the doors open, directing them inside, but he does not enter with them and the door shuts behind the last of them. The children do not notice, as they are too mesmerised by the room itself.

“Ooh’s” and “ahh’s” fill the room they are in. Room is not even an appropriate word for it; the area itself is almost as large as a soccer field. There are running tracks on its circumference and on the walls there are so many training tools and equipment like pull up bars and more.

They are so interested in the room that they fail to hear more children enter this room. Apparently they would be having joint classes.

There are four people standing in the middle of the enormous area and Touka has to hold in her laughter; one of them is the man who offered his and his colleague’s seats to her and Ken on their first day here. His eyebrows are still hilarious and she can hear some of the other children snorting a little too.

“Welcome!” The eyebrows man tells them cheerfully, his arms spread warmly. “If you will, sit down somewhere near me. I have much to tell all of you.”

It takes a few moments of shuffling and murmurs before all of them are seated. There’s probably a hundred of them here, or even more. Touka does not bother counting because who does that, anyway? Besides, she has to listen to this man who will be the person to train them.

“Right,” he starts. “My name is Seidou Takizawa, please call me Mr. Takizawa. I am a Rank Two investigator and I will be the one to conduct your training. Standing beside me are: Mr. Suzuya, Mr. Abara and Ms. Ihei. Any questions so far?”

He is met with silence and a hundred pair of eyes staring at him, waiting for him to continue.

“Good. Now, vampires are superior to us humans and I’m sure you’ve been told that by my superiors or by the ones who cared for you before you came here. This training is to prepare you to match the vampire’s abilities as close as possible; you will still be inferior compared to them but you will at least have a standing chance against them.

“We will begin with basic stamina training and that will basically be what you’ll have to do for a few weeks, after that we will have to start training you in basic combat skills and so on. Any questions?”

A few hands shoot up.

“Yes?” Mr. Takizawa points at one of the raised hands.

“Why stamina training? Shouldn’t we be practicing those silver weapons?”

“Your vampire enemies are incredibly fast. The stamina training helps you to at least be on par with their speed. This is so you can see their attacks and defend or attack as necessary. Our greatest investigator achieves his success in being faster than the vampires by training his speed and stamina daily.” He says the last sentence almost proudly. “Any other questions?”

No other hands came up. Seems the first child had the question everyone wanted answered.

“Very good. Let’s begin. Ms. Ihei, if you will?”

The lady with the bright pink hair steps forward with a small box in her hands. “Each of you, take one of these and put it around your wrist. I’ll pass the box around, so take one from it and pass the box to the next person.”

Touka takes the little device in her hands to observe it. It looks like a watch; there’s a time and everything, but she suspects that it isn’t something just for keeping track of the time. After all, why would they need to specially keep track of the time while training?

“That is a step tracker,” Ms. Ihei explains after each child has gotten their own step tracker. “Usually, people use it to track how many steps they’ve taken that day, but we’re going to use a separate function. We’ll be taking track of how many kilometres you’ve run.”

“Everyone here is to run ten laps around this field. One lap is about four hundred metres, so all of you will be running four kilometres today.”

Groans sound through the room and echo off the walls. 

“No choice. We had to go through the same thing. Now on your feet and start running! Every minute you do not start running you have to run an extra kilometre and we’ll be keeping track!”

Every child scrambles onto their feet and makes a beeline towards the starting line of the running track. Some dash full speed ahead and stop only moments later, and some start with a jog. Touka is one of those who begins with a jog because she knows that if she runs at her full speed now she would just burn out her engine.

Ken begins next to her as well, but after some time they are separated and Touka is but a tiny speck in the sea of running children.

“You there! No stopping, keep running, you can power walk if you want but only at a fast pace!” Mr. Suzuya yells, pointing at a boy who had stopped to catch his breath. 

Touka’s face is flushed red and she’s only on her third round. Her lungs are hurting and her legs feel as if they’re starting to burn. They had been wrong to think that they would go easy on them because they are children. They had been so, so wrong. She really only managed to survive because they were allowed to power walk when they ran out of breath.

Towards the end she is focusing on ignoring the pain in her legs and lungs. It’s hard to take note of her surroundings now because she’s focusing so much on the pain, so she has no idea how many laps the other five have run so far. When she is finally done with her tenth lap she basically collapses on the floor, practically boneless.

“Girl,” a tall man with long hair approaches her, kneeling down to speak to her. When Touka looks up she notices his eyes are all white, no pupils or anything. “Would you like some water? I can give you some.”

She glances around the area, finding many other children in her current situation; tired, flushed and sweaty. Water sounds like a miracle to her now.

“... sure.” she pants, still breathing hard from her run. Her legs feel like jelly now and standing up seems to be an impossible task for her at this point in time. She would have to do this every day?

The man returns with a large plastic cup with a straw and offers it to her. She sits up and gives a quiet word of thanks before drinking the water through the straw. It’s ice cold and runs down her throat smoothly. Before she knows it she’s downed the entire cup and she feels much better than before, though she still feels the heat in her face and the weakness in her legs.

Ken and the other four are still somewhere she can’t really see and she doesn’t bother searching for them because she’s too tired to stand up. 

She has absolutely no idea how long she sat on the floor for but after everyone was finished with their run and on the verge of death did the adults speak once again. 

“That’s actually all for today,” Mr. Takizawa shouts. “You’ll be doing this every day, but don’t worry, it’ll get easier as time goes on! There’ll come a day where, if you don’t run, you’ll feel weird.”

Touka blanches. How could this get easier, and how would she even come to enjoy running when it turned her legs into sacks of jelly and practically destroyed her lungs? She is positively sure that Mr. Takizawa is full of funny nonsense, like his weird hairstyle. In fact, she wonders if his hair is like that because of all the nonsense he thinks about.

“Go on,” Ms. Ihei tells them. Her eyes are slanted like she’s very tired but she seems nice enough. “You can do whatever until tomorrow starts. If you want to stay to catch your breath, you can, but don’t stay for too long because other people might want to use this room for warming up.”

Touka stands on her shaky legs and makes her way towards the door. She can’t feel much of anything in her legs now, but at least she can walk. The children who finished running the latest of them all are still on the floor, sweaty and unmoving while breathing hard. Self pity passes through her head fleetingly before she reminds herself that she signed up for this, so she needs to see it through to the end, which came either when she retires, or when she dies.

The way back to her room is easy enough to remember. The corridor she’s in is just a straight line and it leads her back into the Main Lobby without any issue. There are more people in the Main Lobby now, like how it usually is and she wonders how long it took for all of them to complete the run. 

The adults walking around pay her no mind when she walks past them and back into her little room. She taps the keycard on the lock and enters her room. It’s tempting to just throw herself into her bed but she knows that in her current state she would just make the bed all sweaty and smelly and disgusting, so she grabs a fresh set of clothes from her drawers and locks herself in the bathroom to freshen up. 

A few days ago a basket with a laminated note with the words ‘laundry’ appeared in the bathroom. They had paid it no mind because it was probably the adults who had placed it in there; why they placed it a few days into their stay they will never know. Touka doesn’t think much of it as she throws her sweaty uniform into the basket then steps into the shower.

For once she showers with water that doesn’t immediately turn her skin red. She feels if she were to use that she would probably faint in the bathroom and that would worry Ken. Instead, she turns it towards the cold setting; it’s not ice cold since that would be too cold, but she maintains the temperature to be somewhat similar to room temperature water. It’s enough to not make her regret her decision and crank it hot again.

She takes a fairly quick shower because Ken still had to use it and she feels bad for making him wait too long. Though it is quick she makes sure she is clean before she steps out of the bathroom. 

Ken is actually on the floor, lying down and facing the ceiling. His cheeks are very, very red and his black hair is sticking to his face. Touka prods him with her foot playfully and his eyes turn to face her. 

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.” She returns. “Won’t you go shower?”

He raises a hand. “Give me a while… I can’t feel my legs a lot.”

She kneels down next to him and pokes at his red cheeks. He grimaces and weakly smacks her hands away, but when she does it again he does not react. Touka turns to glance at the clock for a moment, eyebrows raising and jaw hanging at the fact that it is already past ten in the morning. It had taken all of them over two hours to complete the ten laps that were required of them before they were dismissed.

“How long did it take for you to finish?” She asks him, directing her attention back to him.

He gives her a shrug. “Dunno. I finished after you, though.”

Her eyebrows raise yet again. “Really? I thought you would finish faster than me!”

Ken rolls his eyes. “I don’t like the sports stuff or anything like that. I didn’t go out and play a lot with the other kids from my place before we came here.”

Touka purses her lips and nods slowly. “Really now? Well, too bad because we have to do this every day.”

“It’ll help us,” Ken says, sitting up. “Even though I don’t like it. Maybe if we keep doing this we can be Special Class Investigators one day.”

A Special Class Investigator; the highest rank within the facility, or so she had been told. They’re the ones to lead large scale missions against the vampires. From what she knows, there are only a handful of Special Class Investigators and reaching that position is near impossible. 

“Imagine leading big missions…” he encourages. “Wouldn’t that be something…?”

Touka does try to imagine it, her nine year old brain hinders some of it but she imagines herself as an adult, commanding underlings in battle and whatnot. She imagines herself in heated battles against vampires, using weapons made entirely of silver and perhaps, Ken will be the one to fight by her side. If they were partners in combat, it would be extraordinary.

* * *

It has been a little over a month since their training first began, and it has been nothing but daily running. In the first few days, Touka’s legs were so sore that she struggled to walk without pain, and she still had to run with those legs. However, she gradually grew used to it, and while running is still somewhat uncomfortable for her it is far better than what she had to deal with a month ago.

In fact, she’s able to run thirteen laps now, and her lungs don’t hurt much either, though she still sweats like crazy after her run. 

“Good work,” Rio tells her, tossing her a water bottle, she catches it with two hands before it hits the ground. It is ice water again, as is the norm for them. They’ve all grown better at running, even Saiko who hates anything physical. 

“Thanks,” she replies before chugging the cooling water. She places her hand on her hip and stares up at the bright lights in the field. They’ve been running for a while now, when will they do or learn something other than this? Quite frankly, she’s getting tired of running daily.

As usual, Saiko finishes last among the six of them, but not the last among everybody else. She hobbles over to the table where the water bottles are laid out and grabs one, sits herself down on the floor, and downs the water. She tilts her head back and lets out a loud sigh.

“I’m so sick of this…” she groans, voicing Touka’s thoughts. “I hate running. I hate everything about this training. What kinda torture will they put us through next…?”

Mr. Takizawa claps his hands together loudly, attracting the attention of the children to him.

“Right,” he says, his voice echoing through. “You’ve all been having daily runs for almost five weeks at this point and it’s safe to say that most, if not all of you, have increased your stamina a little more. That’s not to say that this exercise will stop, it will still continue—”

Loud sighs and groans come from the children.

“—but you’ll have other training to attend to now.” Mr. Takizawa says, ignoring the disgruntlement of the children. “Of course, we’ll allow you to rest first; your stamina training is now from eight to ten in the morning. From ten to one in the afternoon you are free to do as you please, but at one, please make sure you are in this room again. This takes effect tomorrow and please be on time.”

“What will we be doing?” A child asks.

“Nothing much,” Mr. Suzuya tells the boy. “We will be instructing you on more physical training; pull ups, sit ups… the works. It’s to help you build your muscles for the near future.”

“You _were_ told that it would be a harsh path for you,” Mr. Takizawa points out to the children. “Now that you’re here, it’s best to seek it through to the end. Class dismissed.”

After spending almost five weeks of her mornings running, Touka no longer felt much of that jelly feeling in her legs when she walked after a bout of running. Sometimes she would even feel refreshed after running, which is something she never thought she would experience during her first few days of the hellish running. The same could be said for the rest of them, even Saiko.

“Race you to the shower,” Ken tells her with a tap on her shoulder, then he bolts. 

Touka took a few seconds to register his words. “Hey! Not fair! COME BACK HERE!” She practically screams as she chases after him, leaving the rest behind in the dust. 

As expected, Ken reached their room first, having gotten a head start before Touka. He grins triumphantly at her as he opens the door and lets himself inside, ignoring her glare. He sticks his tongue out at her playfully and receives whack on the shoulder from her in response.

“Go take your stupid shower,” she grumbles with a pout, sitting herself down on the floor. It is an unspoken rule between the two of them now; no sweat on the bedsheets. 

He grabs his clothes and gives her one more stupid smirk before he disappears into the bathroom, leaving her alone in the room.

Now alone with her thoughts, she thinks back to a month ago, when she imagined herself as an adult, perhaps even as a Special Class Investigator. They are about to take their next step to becoming an investigator. She expects it to be tough, but as of now she’s prepared for it. She doesn’t want to see anymore Blood Bag children being born anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll gonna have to wait until they grow into adults first if you want the fluff and the romance. Luckily for you guys, it's gonna come soon.


	4. Gentle Feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter actually has two time skips, which I am a little upset about because I couldn’t find more to write about in between the times. This chapter also has a little bit of crack moments, but this is also the chapter where the fluff starts so enjoy :3

“Can anyone tell me the vital points of a vampire?” Ms. Ihei asks, walking about the small classroom.

Fourteen year old Touka is ready to fall asleep. She’s barely staying awake as it is and it’s taking all her strength to keep her eyelids open. A quick glance to her left shows her an already sleeping Saiko, snoring quietly with her head on the table.

When she had turned twelve, they had started classes on vampire biology and anatomy. There isn’t much to learn at all, so lessons regarding this are only once a week, but Touka absolutely _dreads_ these lessons. Ms. Ihei and alternating adults practically repeat the same thing every single lesson. She’s sick and tired of hearing how vampires are weak to silver and whatnot. It’s been drilled into her head at this point.

“The heart, neck and the brain,” Ginshi answers with a raise of his hand. He seems eager to learn but Touk knows that deep down, he’s tired of this garbage, too.

“Very good,” the pink haired woman praises. “If you can wake up Saiko, please?”

This jolts almost all the sleep out of Touka. That woman is paying attention to who is sleeping and who isn’t, and she’s lucky to not have had her eyelids shut. The sudden scare causes her to sit upright before she turns to Saiko and starts shaking her.

“Saiko, wake up,” she whispers. It’s getting more and more awkward because Ms. Ihei has stopped talking to wait for Saiko to wake up and now the whole class of forty students is staring at them.

“Oh dear…” she hears Ms. Ihei sigh. Touka screams at her on the inside; it’s not like she wanted this. 

Ginshi, sitting on Saiko’s right, also joins in on trying to wake her up. After a few more shakes the little girl finally responds with a loud groan.

“Whuz da time…?” She groans sleepily, rubbing at her tired eyes, seemingly unaware that she is in the middle of class right now and that Ms. Ihei is looking right at her.

“Right, Saiko,” Ms. Ihei says loudly, catching Saiko’s attention with a loud gasp. “I trust that you can tell me what Ginshi said earlier since you were paying attention to my lesson?”

Saiko is frozen now. She had not heard a single thing that Ms. Ihei had been teaching. Her fingers strum the blue desk in front of her. “Uh…”

Tooru, sitting in front of them, catches her attention by placing his hand on his heart.

“The heart…” Saiko says slowly, now eyeing Rio who has reached for his neck while making it seem as if he is simply scratching it.

“The neck, and…”

Touka whispers the answer as quietly as she can through grit teeth without being heard in the silent classroom. 

“Brain.”

Ms. Ihei does not seem amused, and Touka’s heart drops at the thought that she’s caught on to the three of them providing her with answers, but she says nothing and carries on with the lesson like nothing happened. In time, they are dismissed, and luckily for them, Ms. Ihei does not call them out to stay after class so she can have a little chat with them.

“I thought I would die!” Saiko says loudly as soon as they are out of earshot from Ms. Ihei. “I didn’t expect that she would call on me of all people!”

“Well, you were sleeping, “ Rio points out. 

“I can’t have been the only person!”

“You were.”

She gapes at him, then she turns to Touka, then Ginshi. They both nod at her, confirming what Rio just told her.

“I was close to sleeping,” Touka admits. “I don’t like Vampire Biology lessons…”

“They’re boring!” Saiko huffs, agreeing with her. 

It is eight in the evening already, a usual time for them to end the day now. Their days are now to wake up at seven, begin training from eight to ten, then have their break from ten to one in the afternoon, and from one to four another bout of training. Depending on the day, they would either have Vampire Biology lessons or yet another bout of training from six to eight in the evening.

Of course, it is very tiring, but they are somewhat used to this already. At the young age of fourteen, they have steady muscles growing in preparation for their future careers as investigators. 

They eat their dinners together before they retire to their rooms. They are all tired, and all a little older now, so they do not play with their toys as often anymore. Sometimes, they sit in the same places for months on end before they are touched again, and sometimes it is just to dust them off a little or even store them away in another location.

Ken is the one to open their door and he even lets her inside first. In the four years that they have been staying here, their room has started to look more like a home. Their definition of a home, at least. They had bought more clothes, bedsheets that they like, fake plants because why not, and more books for them to read together. But while it looks more filled, their room is messy; books are strewn on the floor because there is no proper bookshelf for Ken to put the books, and the shelves they already have are filled with other things like their fake plants and some little trinkets. Their beds are not made, and the floor has their soft toys thrown about because they were too stuffy to hold.

“We need to clean this…” Touka sighs, leaning forward to pick up her stuffed bunny. She tosses it absentmindedly on her bed while Ken picks up his books and stacks them on top of one another next to his own bed.

They have grown taller and broader in these five years, so they had stopped sharing a bed since they were eleven. It felt odd in the beginning, since the two of them had shared a bed for two years straight, and Touka had found it hard to sleep without Ken’s constant patting on her back when they were about to sleep, but she had to get used to it because the little bed could no longer support both of them.

She throws his teddy bear back into his bed. “What do we do with the toys, though?” 

“Hmm?” He responds, still stacking his books. It’s too tall for one stack so he divides it into a few more stacks.

“I mean, we hardly play with the toys anymore. What do we do about them?”

Ken pauses, then shrugs. “Dunno. We could give them to the younger ones, or we can ask if we can donate them to the orphanages or something. The kids that don’t come here will be happy to have them, I think.”

The mention of the orphanages, her previous home, makes her stop and think about them for the first time in a while. She thinks of Yoriko, the little girl who she was closest to. Touka thinks sadly that Yoriko might have forgotten about her; after all, her mind had been wiped about any existence of vampires after she had moved away to come here.

“Did you have a close friend back in your orphanage?” She asks, sitting herself on her bed, hands clasped together.

Ken stands after he’s done arranging his books and he pauses for just a moment. “Yeah. His name is Hideyoshi, but I called him Hide. Why?”

She shrugs. “Nothing. Just thought of one from the orphanage I was staying at then decided to ask you about yours.”

“Mm…” he sighs, taking a seat next to her after he’s taken a book from his pile of books. “I haven’t seen him in four years though. And I’ll probably never see him again; Tokyo is so big and we’ll be working a lot after we grow older…”

“Do you miss him?”

“Sometimes. He was really the only one who liked to talk to me. I still don’t get why because I was a really antisocial kid.”

“You still are,” she points out with a laugh.

He turns to frown at her, but she knows that he doesn’t mean it. “Very funny, but you’re the same since we both have the same number of friends.”

She opens her mouth to protest, then shuts it, then opens it again. He laughs at her because she looks like a fish and that she couldn’t come up with a proper comeback because what he said is true. She whacks him on the arm in response and he just laughs more.

Ken holds out the book in his hand and waves it. “Read?”

“Yes!”

* * *

“C’mon!” Mr. Amon yells. “You’ll be dead if you go against a vampire like this!”

Ginshi is sent flying from Mr. Amon’s fierce attack. He lands on the floor with a loud ‘thump’ and the others can hear him groaning.

This is the training that Touka dreads even more than Vampire Biology; weapons training. And it’s a training they have almost every day.

Mr. Amon is the most physically fit of the adults she’s encountered in this facility so far, and he is the one to give them their lesson on how to use their weapons. In the beginning he had simply taught them how to do proper swings and jabs and whatnot by making them do them a few hundred times with wooden swords in the short hours of training time they had with him because a silver sword or katana is, apparently, an investigator’s main weapon. While they did come away with sore arms, that seemed like heaven compared to what they have to go through now. 

They had swung their wooden swords around for almost six months before this hellish training where they have to go against Mr. Amon with their wooden swords. They severely underestimated him when he told them that he would have no weapon and would be going easy on them.

“Next!” Mr. Amon barks. “Ken, you’re up!”

Ken flinches and grips his wooden sword tighter. He dreads this moment as much as anyone else because it’s definitely going to hurt no matter how careful he is against the far superior Mr. Amon. There’s no fighting this and he has to practically haul himself from the ground. Touka gives him a weak smile that he doesn’t return just because of how much he absolutely despises this training.

“Both hands on the sword,” Mr. Amon reminds him. “Your dominant hand grips the bottom and your non-dominant one above it.”

“Yes…” Ken sighs. His legs are one in front of the other and he squats down slightly, readying himself into an attacking position.

“Be quick, or else you’ll never stand a chance against the vampires.”

Almost in a flash, the adult man is in front of him. Ken’s first thought is to duck down to dodge the fist flying towards his face and he actually manages to dodge it, but he’s on the floor now from the sudden drop. 

“Be faster!” Mr. Amon yells somewhere to his right. 

Ken rolls himself on the floor until he’s in a position where he can stand up almost instantly. He assumes the same battle position with an almost wild look in his eyes, frantically searching for where the adult man could possibly be.

“Too slow!” 

A force knocks his legs and his vision zooms in on the hard tiles below him, his face would’ve had a nasty greeting with the floor had it not been for his fast reflexes that caused him to block his face with his arms. Though he had blocked his face, the impact to his arms still hurt and he’s trying not to cry as he sits himself up.

“Now, Ken here did good dodging my first attack,” Mr. Amon praises. “But can someone tell me where he went wrong?”

“He rolled?”

“He fell on his face?”

“He didn’t look behind.”

“Correct, Kuki!” He bellows, pointing at the boy. “You’re expected to be aware of your surroundings in battle, front _and_ back! The vampires will strike any time they see your back exposed! Next!”

Ken lifts himself off the floor and walks back to his seat on the floor next to Touka, his figure slouched. 

“You did good,” she encourages him as he sat down. “How’s your arms?”

“Thanks and fine…” he mumbles, barely audible to even Touka. “God, I hate this class _so_ much.”

“Same, but what can we do? At least you’re not the only one getting beaten up, I’m probably next after Kuki…”

“Good luck,” is all he can really think to say because she definitely needs it going up against Mr. Amon. “You really need it.”

“Thanks.”

She wasn’t after Kuki, but she is a few more people after him. The moment Mr. Amon called her out was the moment she started cursing her very existence. She’s been through this before many, many times, and she’s hated it all those times; too many times had she come out of it with a large bruise somewhere on her skin from failure to dodge an attack properly or harshly landing on the floor.

“Ready your stance.” Mr. Amon tells her as he readies his own.

When she is ready he is gone, as is his usual starting move. He’s told them countless times that his speed, almost impossible for them to keep track of now, is still slower than many vampires. It’s supposed to add fear to them when they actually begin proper jobs as investigators, so that they would not be careless while on the hunt for vampires.

There are telltale signs that she’s forced herself to memorise while against Mr. Amon. A loud noise to either her left or right is an obvious attempt to strike at either side of her. The hairs on her neck standing up tells her that he’s right behind her, ready to kick her legs out like with Ken earlier. Sometimes he would confuse her by repeating his actions, but never attacking.

This time, she hears him to her right and almost on instinct she swings her body to her left to avoid him. Next, she hears the multiple footsteps all around her; he’s trying to confuse her.

She grips her wooden sword tighter and focuses. She barely has any time to react when she feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand and when she looks down she can see a large leg aiming for her own. She jumps in the air, turning herself at an awkward angle to face the man behind her and time seems to slow down when she raises the wooden sword and brings it down on him.

From the awkwardness of how she jumped, she lands on her bottom, but the pin does not register because the room is suddenly filled with gasps and whispers. Mr. Amon stands before her, a smile on his usually stoic face.

“Well done,” he praises. “You’ve managed to land a hit on me.”

Her classmates are staring at her in shock and she stares back at them, equally shocked. She is the first of the twenty of them to manage a hit against Mr. Amon. 

“You’ll continue to improve.” He extends a hand towards her to pull her up. “All of you. One day, you’ll probably be able to match me in combat.”

The children exchange nervous glances with each other. They have been practicing against this man for more than a few months already, and only today did one of them land a hit on him. How long would it take the rest of them to each manage to successfully hit him as Touka did?

“We will keep practicing this. You’ll all improve, but until then, Saiko, you’re up!”

Her loud groan is expected by all of them.

After all twenty of them have had their go against Mr. Amon three times over they are free to leave. It is the last training for them for the day, so it is a little over eight in the evening. 

Ken rubs the area of his arm where he had used to brace the impact when he fell. It stings a little and he knows for sure that in one or two days time it will be an ugly purple and green. But that’s a given for all of them; they’ve all taken a bad hit from Mr. Amon or the floor.

Dinner is quiet between the six of them and it’s been common ever since their days ended at eight in the evening. They’re too tired to say much of anything except for a few words here and there regarding their training. Today has them talking a bit more, mainly on Touka being the first to strike at Mr. Amon, but other than that it’s still rather quiet.

In their little room afterwards, Ken is the first to clean himself, then she afterwards. 

“Didn’t expect you to hit Mr. Amon,” he admits with a small smile, taking his seat next to her on her bed. “You twisted so weirdly I thought you would just go splat on the floor.”

Touka gives him a dramatic huff, jutting her chin out in the process. “Didn’t think I could do it, didja? Well, I landed on my butt and now it hurts.”

“Everything hurts when we practice against Mr. Amon. It sucks because we can’t last more than thirty seconds against him; he’s too fast.”

She agrees with him. She is almost certain that her hit on Mr. Amon had been the universe itself aligning perfectly to give her that one second to smack him, that or she had basically used up all her luck for the rest of her life. 

“Maybe we’ll be as good as him one day.” She says while fidgeting with her thumbs. The hope is there but it’s likely impossible to reach. “I’m pretty sure all First Class Investigators and above are his speed or even faster.”

“Think of what the strongest investigator is like, then,” Ken marvels, his eyes are lit up. “He must be so much faster than Mr. Amon if he can fight battles without even getting scratched.”

They’ve all heard the stories of the legendary investigator; the undefeated champion of this facility and nickname as the White Reaper, Kishou Arima. None of them have ever had the opportunity to see this legendary man but the adults tell them stories of his most successful missions and how he came out of the battlefield covered in blood that was not his.

“You think any of them have come out like that?” Touka asks, referring to the adults that train them. “Like blood that’s not theirs.”

Ken shrugs. “If I had to guess I think Mr. Yomo is the one that can be closest to Kishou Arima.”

“Because his hair is white, too?”

“No, no. He just seems like it.” He laughs, then his hand is brought up to rub at one of his bruising arms. Touka does not fail to notice this.

“Does it hurt really bad?” She asks him, looking at his arm.

“Not really, it’s just uncomfortable.” He replies. “I think it’s gonna bruise really bad though. I took a bad fall.”

Touka grimaces. “You did. Went smack on the floor and everything. You want some ointment on that?”

Ken thinks about it before he nods. It would do well for him to have the bruise reduce its swelling and heal faster, for he will still have many opportunities to fall on his arm and likely injure it more severely than just a simple bruise.

He watches her as she digs through one of their drawers for a small tube of ointment they had bought on one of their trips out a while back. Half of it is already gone from the amount of times they had to ease up a bruise after their training. She squeezes a small amount of the white paste onto her fingers before rubbing it on his right arm. It stings a little but he doesn’t let her know that; she might end up saying sorry and what is there for her to apologise for?

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

She’s pressing her finger onto his bruise while rubbing in the ointment; apparently it helps to have some sort of increased blood flow or something. It doesn’t take long before she moves onto his other arm and repeats her actions.

In their small, little space, it is peaceful. Ken feels a warm feeling spread through his chest. He’s felt this many, many times before and though it feels similar to what he feels in extreme joy, it’s still different. It’s warmer and there’s an odd fluffy feeling to it, and it’s a little difficult for him to breathe now. 

This feeling really only comes when he’s alone with her. Perhaps it’s the peace he feels when he spends time alone with her; reading their books and talking about everything and nothing. Perhaps it’s just a special happiness that he feels only with her.

Perhaps…

His answers to this odd feeling come to a halt and he feels a soft heat appear in his cheeks. He’s definitely read about this before, and now he is consciously experiencing it for himself. A quick glance at Touka’s face makes him fully aware of the feelings he is experiencing, and suddenly they feel like they’ve increased tenfold.

“Done,” she says, snapping him out of his emotional wave. “Let’s hope it heals faster.”

He quickly nods, suddenly not trusting himself to speak at all. Thoughts fly through his head, asking him how he’s going to communicate with her, now that he feels like this around her? He can’t just keep nodding at her questions, it would upset and confuse her and the others.

“I-I don’t want to make the bruise worse,” he manages, though his voice somewhat cracks halfway. Touka either doesn’t care or doesn’t notice, but she smiles at him. Now aware of what he is feeling, he prays that the blush he is feeling is not obvious to her.

 _“Say something,”_ he begs his mind. The silence is growing more and more tense for him and he’s desperate to break out from it. 

In the end, he does not need to, because she picks up a book from the many they own and scans the cover.

“Have we read this before?” She asks him, showing him the book. “Monochrome Rainbow.”

Ken is grateful on the inside as he looks at the book, then frowns. “I think we have. It’s the one with all the short stories, remember?”

She huffs and sets the book down to dig out another. They really have too many books and they should really consider giving it away or something. This time she pulls out a manga book, which he raises eyebrows at because he doesn’t remember ever seeing that when they went out with the rest to purchase necessities.

“When did you get that?” He asks, pointing at the manga book.

Touka shrugs. “I think it was the last trip we took? I threw it in for the heck of it.”

“What’s it about?” Ken sits upright now, curious.

She flips it over to read the summary. “Err… basically a samurai trying to repent for his past by wandering around Japan with a… reverse sword?”

“Let me see?” He’s already up and walking towards her. She’s never been good at Japanese and sometimes has a little trouble with it, even though he’s read to her so many times for the last five years. He picks up the manga book and looks to where she is pointing.

“A sword with the blade on the other side… that’s weird.” He remarks while flipping the book open. It’s snatched from his hand before he can react and she’s holding it in front of her, shaking her head.

“We read it together.”

His chest tightens again. “Of… of course.”

* * *

Ken is almost seventeen years old when he finally manages to beat Mr. Amon in a sword fight. He’s not the first to do so, and there are many others who have brought Mr. Amon low before him, but to him, it is a big feat; to defeat the man that he’s been struggling against for so long, even if he had been holding back against him for the entire time. 

His whole class cheers when Mr. Amon’s falls to one knee after a particularly hard hit to the side. It feels surreal, like he’s still within a dream when he sees that his mentor is on the floor. He looks around the room for Touka, wide-eyed, like she would be the one to tell him that this isn’t a dream.

He finds her quickly and his heart seems to be put at ease when she is smiling and clapping for him. She had beaten Mr. Amon prior to him, just a few days ago, so she fully understands the joy and disbelief he is feeling now. He does nothing but smile dumbly in place for a few moments before his mentor stands before him, beaming with pride.

“Well done,” he praises, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Very well done!”

“Thank… thank you.” is all Ken can manage in this situation. 

“You’re qualified for the final exam now! I’m sure you’ll be an amazing investigator.” Mr. Amon tells him. “Let this be a proud memory for you, boy. You’ll surely do great deeds in the future, I’m sure of it.”

A pat on his back causes him to walk back towards his space next to Touka. He’s still in some odd trance, still in disbelief. 

Many of his classmates are speaking above each other, trying to congratulate him and praise him all at the same time but his focus is on the woman next to him. She’s patting him on the back and telling him that he’s done a good job, and somehow that’s better than any comment he’s getting right now.

He’s hardly paying attention to the next few people who go up against Mr. Amon. All that flies through his mind is that he is at the final step before becoming a full fledged investigator. All he has to do is pass that final exam, and he will be an investigator. 

He eventually walks back to his shared room with Touka. It’s around here where his excited thoughts come to a complete halt.

There is nothing much for him to be afraid of or nervous about. He’s done well to get used to the feeling for almost three years, and it’s likely not just him. At some point in time she grew a little more nervous around him, and they’ve shared special moments with each other that, at first glance from others, is no different from their usual routine, but is a world of difference for them; they would sit closer to one another, so close that they would almost be touching. Sometimes, his hand would lay on hers under their tables in class, and no one would notice. 

In the privacy of their little room, it is far more different to what they would show outside. Gentle and soft hugs would be exchanged between the two of them before it was time for them to sleep. Sleepless nights for one of them would result in them crawling into the other’s bed, where the small and almost cramped space allowed for more warmth and comfort. They would touch their foreheads together; he might nuzzle his cheek into her hair or she might bury her face into the space between his neck and shoulder.

Their relationship between one another is close, so very close, but never touching.

He honestly does not remember how their relationship had grown to become like this, but he isn’t complaining. He enjoys this as much as she does, and the both of them are rather content with their current situation. Only the future could tell if they would further their relationship into something else. Something more between the two of them than just warm hugs and hearts.

“We’ll get to take the final exam,” Touka sighs. It’s a happy sigh, somewhat akin to relief. “I can’t believe that it’s been eight years here.”

He hums a sound of agreement, lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. “It feels like it’s only been a short amount of time, right? I can still remember seeing you again when we first came here like it was yesterday.”

Touka smiles at the memory. She can also remember it vividly; the shock that surged through her body and the joy she felt when he held her in his arms in a tight embrace on that day. It’s a memory that she will never forget until the day she passes.

“You were so short back then,” she reminisces, sitting down on his bed. “For a while you were shorter than me.”

He rolls his eyes and sits up. “I was only a little shorter than you.”

“And now you’re a head taller. Shut up.”

He chuckles softly at her reaction, then moves to brush aside the hair that covers one of her eyes over her ear. 

“What are you doing…?” She mumbles softly, looking at him through a sideways glance, her head lowered. 

“Why won’t you keep it up like this? You look more beautiful with both eyes shown.” He tells her, running his hand through her dark locks carefully. He has to hold back a smile when she sees a faint blush appear on her cheeks. 

“...I-I don’t know,” she admits. Her voice is slightly higher in pitch to reflect her feelings. “It happened so long ago that I forgot the reasoning…”

“Mm…” he hums, still stroking her soft hair. At times he would find himself staring at her for prolonged periods of time. Sometimes he would think she is cute, other times that she is pretty, or maybe even both depending on what situation they are in. No matter what situation they are present at, he still finds her beautiful to look at.

There’s that warm feeling in his heart again when she looks away, her blush growing deeper. His heart starts beating faster in his chest and soon he feels his face heating up, too. 

There are many moments like this between them. They are well aware of this, yet do nothing about it. Perhaps it is fear, or perhaps it is uncertainty. They both know very well that, in their future careers, their lives are not guaranteed. Losing one will cause the other great suffering for likely the rest of their life. 

But still…

She draws a quiet but sharp breath when he inches closer to her. They are so close their bodies are almost touching. She can practically feel the heat radiating off his body.

“We will be working soon,” he says suddenly, quietly. “Sooner or later, we will have to move out to give the little ones a place to stay after they volunteer.”

His head comes to rest on top of hers. “I don’t want to be alone when we have to move out. At least someone I’m familiar with has to be there”

She laughs softly, and he smiles at that. “Maybe you should get Rio to live with you. You two are so close, after all…”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

Of course she does. She’s spent the majority of her life with him; when they were mere Blood Bags, and up until now when they are young adults. It would work out for both of them, since they’ve known each other for so long, and it would give them more privacy for the future.

“...when did you start…?” She asks. It’s a vague question, but he knows what she is asking about.

“When I was fourteen. It just happened then and there. Do you remember the day you landed your first hit on Mr. Amon, and how after you applied some ointment on my arms? That was around when I…”

He raises his head from her and turns to face her. His hand finds hers and he waits for her to turn to face him. It takes her a few moments to actually look him in the eye in their current situation, but she looks away after a single moment.

“Touka…” he murmurs.

A knock on their door interrupts them. Ken breathes a heavy, frustrated sigh as he rises from his position on the bed and reluctantly walks towards the door. There is no fooling people that they are not in their room. He opens the door, finding Saiko standing outside.

“What is it?” He asks quietly, a mask over his frustration. He’s trying his best to not show it, but he is truly upset that the precious moment between the two of them was ruined.

“Well… we all managed to beat Mr. Amon in a fight,” Saiko starts, beaming. “We wanted to go out and have some fun. We’ve received permission to go out from Ms. Ihei!”

Ken raises his eyebrows before turning to look behind him. Touka is now standing behind him, all traces of her blush gone. “Do you have a place in mind? And what’s the budget they’ve given us?”

“About fifty thousand yen. They told us we could celebrate!”

Touka’s mouth forms an ‘o’ shape. “O-Okay, but we need some time to get ready for it!” It’s a large amount of money for them that they’ve never received before when they asked for a budget when they requested to go outside. 

“Well hurry up! We need to celebrate! We’ll give you five minutes!”

With that she hops off, leaving Ken to shut the door. He blinks, a little disarrayed from the sudden announcement to go out. With such a huge sum of money, too. 

“Come on, hurry up.” Touka tells him, already fumbling through her drawers for clothes. “And you didn’t wash up, so use some dry shampoo and deodorant or something.”

He blinks again, and analyses himself, even lifting up his shoulder to check for odor. “I… I don’t smell that bad, do I?”

She gives no response because by then she’s already slipped into the bathroom to change. 

Ken shrugs to himself and looks for nicer looking clothes. The occasion is a unique one, so he thinks that he should dress well. He brings out a black collared shirt and black jeans, then realises that he seriously needs more colour in his fashion sense. He’s worn all black many times before, so what is the difference this time?

He slips on his usual sneakers and Touka comes out from the bathroom. She’s wearing long pants and a blue v-cut shirt. 

“Will you be okay like that? It’s below ten degrees now.” He says almost immediately, concerned.

“It’ll be fine,” she brushes him off. “I’ll be wearing a jacket, anyways. You wear one, too. You don’t do well against the cold at all.”

He snorts but goes to take his jacket that hangs off his bed post. Like most of his clothing, it’s black in colour, but he shrugs it on. Black is a good colour, and nobody would say anything because black is practically universal.

Touka looks at him then deadpans, shoulders sagging. “You seriously need more colours besides black.” She huffs and tugs on her own jacket; it’s fuzzy and soft and very warm.

He looks at his attire, then at her with wide eyes. “Is it really that bad?”

“I mean, you look great in black but you wear it so often. Seriously, give other colours a go. Now, come on, we have to meet the others.”

She takes his hand in hers and drags him out of the door. He doesn’t fail to notice how she lets go only when the others take note of them.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Ginshi yells. “Before all the good shops close!”

They leave the main building and search for restaurants that can fit their budget using their phones. Eventually, they settle on a nice little ramen shop where the owner would be hush hush about alcohol since they are, after all, only seventeen years old.

It isn’t their first time trying alcohol. At age fifteen, Ginshi had managed to buy a beer because he looked old enough somehow. When they were sixteen, Ken had managed to buy a small bottle of red wine for them to share. It was bitter and made their noses crinkle, but it had been a fun experience.

After their dinner of warm ramen on a cold night came their first sips of sake. They agreed on one bottle for the six of them to share, and they would ask for a second bottle if they wanted it. 

They pour their little cups of sake and they raise a small toast to their futures as full fledged investigators. 

Ken gingerly takes a sip of his sake after being intrigued by its fruity, sweet aroma. At first, it is sweet, like how it smells, then an odd bitterness and hotness fills his mouth and he winces at the sudden transition. Overall, he finds himself thinking that it isn’t bad and looks to the others to search for their opinions.

Rio has completely blanched at the taste, his face scrunched up and his eyes are shut tight. Ginshi has surprisingly downed his in one go, but looks like he regrets it. Saiko and Tooru seem to like it and Touka…

She’s not showing any visible signs of liking or disliking this new drink, but she does keep drinking in little sips.

“Woah,” Ginshi says, wincing. “That really, really burns.”

“Do you need water?” Rio asks, coughing. “Because I need some right now.”

“Man up, Rio!” Saiko tells him cheerfully, already finished with her small cup of sake. She pours herself another while telling him: “Drink more! You’ll like it! Tooru, another one for you, too!”

While the four of them bicker about their alcohol, Ken turns to Touka. “How is it?”

“It’s okay…” she replies, her mouth twisting. “I like the sweet taste.”

“Do you want more?” He offers, holding up the bottle of sake. She shrugs and holds out her cup and he pours it for her. Usually, it would be the female to pour for the male, but they don’t exactly care about that now. 

It takes a little while for the alcohol to kick in, and it’s also when Ken realised that Touka is absolute garbage at holding her alcohol. Her face is red and she seems to be having trouble keeping her eyes open, even her words are slurred when he attempts to talk to her.

He looks around their table. Saiko is already asleep, Ginshi is staring at his empty cup like it’s the most wonderous piece of treasure in the world, Rio is laughing at the air and Tooru is on his fourth cup. Ken himself is starting to feel tired and he feels the need to snap at Rio and tell him to stop laughing at the air because it’s so stupid and annoying. 

“My god, Rio,” he finally snaps, turning to the laughing boy. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

They all turn to stare at him with wide eyes, even Saiko had risen from her sleep to gape at him. 

“Did he just—” 

“I think he did.”

“Oh, wow. I never thought…”

“Didn’t know he would actually curse…”

“Right?”

Rio is staring at Ken with a gaze of wonder rather than being offended. Ken stares back dumbly, unaware that he is the first of the six of them to actually curse using such a foul word. In his hazed state, he has no idea why the other five are looking at him like he’s just stepped on a puppy.

Tooru stands. Surprisingly he still looks okay compared to the rest of them. “Okay, time to go. Before any of you actually get drunk off your minds and do god-knows-what in this place—Ginshi, quit staring at your damn cup and go.”

It takes a little bit but eventually all six of them are hobbling back towards the facility. They blame Saiko for this; she went overboard and ordered two more bottles of sake and they didn’t want to waste it. And the little lady had gotten sleepy and now Ginshi is carrying her on his back, grumbling.

Touka shoves her hands in her pockets. The alcohol she consumed is making her face feel very warm but her hands are still cold in the chilly weather of winter Tokyo. 

“You didn’t drink a lot,” Ken comments, placing a hand on her shoulder. “But look at you.”

“Shut up. You’re basically the same as me. Don’t talk like you’re Tooru now.”

He chuckles. “Didn’t expect him to be able to hold his alcohol that well.”

Touka hums in agreement. She’s feeling rather tired now and wants nothing more than to hop into her bed and sleep. 

“We’ll be home soon.” Ken says, as if reading her mind. “Keep it up. I don’t want to have to carry you like Ginshi with Saiko.”

She snorts loudly, then turns to give him a sleepy glare. “Nah.”

He ruffles her hair and she swats his hand away irritably. “I’m not a kid.”

“But you’re shorter than me.”

She huffs and walks a little faster, but his longer legs allow him to catch up without much effort at all. 

It takes a while for them to reach the facility again and Touka immediately heads towards her room so she can flop herself on her bed and sleep for eternity. At this point she feels that she is too tired to even get up and shower, but she does not necessarily need one as she did not do any rigorous training in the afternoon after her initial morning shower.

Ken leaves her alone to take his shower and though he takes less than ten minutes to shower and change into his pajamas, Touka is already asleep when he emerges from the bathroom. He frowns at the fact that she’s still clothed in the clothes she wore earlier; it would be more comfortable for her to wear her pajamas.

He shakes her shoulder and receives a sleepy grunt from her as a response. “Touka, wouldn’t it be better if you change into your pajamas?”

“Mm…” she mumbles. Her eyes barely open to peek at him and it’s clear to him that the alcohol, though in small amounts, has made her very tired.

“Are you just going to sleep like that? It’s very uncomfortable.”

She mumbles something incoherent and sits up slowly, eyes half-lidded as she picks up her pajamas and heads for the bathroom. She’s done in almost no time and moves to throw herself on her bed once again, leaving her clothes in a pile on the floor. In her mind she dismisses them because she will pick them up when she wakes up in the morning.

Ken joins her on her bed after turning off the lights, even though it is cramped for two young adults to be sleeping on it together. He just feels the sensation of wanting to be a bit closer to her tonight and it’s not an uncommon feeling; he’s done this so many times over the last two years of their more intimate relationship that she sleeps on only one side of her bed just in case he decides to crawl in her bed in the middle of the night.

On nights like these he would bury his face into her hair while she tucks her face comfortably in the crook of his neck, occasionally having her hands fisted in his shirt. He does his usual routine of patting her on her back, and within moments her breathing evens out and he can hear her snoring softly.

He uses his second hand to comb through her hair softly, careful not to wake her. He does this for quite some time until he himself is tired as well, and when he is, he places a gentle kiss on her forehead before nuzzling his nose into her hair again.

“Goodnight…” he whispers softly, drifting off into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holidays are starting so I can probably update more, but I’m about to start my second year of college in April, which I hear is hella hectic. My seniors tell me that the second year is basically hell so don’t be surprised if I have to go on hiatus because of it.


	5. Final Exam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been binging Korean drama for the past month and that's why the chapter is so late :P
> 
> Also, since I been crying over the angst scenes of these dramas, the angst in this series will be pretty damn good :-)

“We’re going to fight against an actual vampire?” Touka gapes, the food in her mouth almost dropping out from shock.

“Apparently,” Ginshi sighs, leaning back against his chair. He made sure to eat a lot, since they would have to start paying for their meals after their final exam, the act which would turn them into full fledged investigators that could earn money. “Crazy, if you ask me. Why not let us fight Mr. Amon again? What if we die trying to fight that damn vampire?”

Ken sours at the thought, but he remembers that nobody has ever died during their final exam. “But no one’s ever died during the final exam. I think they let us fight a weak vampire or there are skilled investigators there to make sure we don’t lose our heads.”

“Makes sense,” Saiko remarks, placing her spoon onto her plate. “They won’t want any of us to die.”

“But we will eventually, either we die in battle or we live to retire and die of old age.” Rio says somberly. He has not been holding it up well since the final exam is in a few days’ time. “I want to meet a nice girl and maybe start a family, then I can live pretty well.”

They nod in unison. Ideally, that would be the best situation for each of them; to live happily and die of old age. As of now their options for potential partners are limited to the facility they live in, as they cannot reveal their occupations to partners not from the facility. It would be for the best, as the people here are well aware that life is not guaranteed in this job. 

“But it’ll be very sad if your partner dies before you,” Tooru says sadly, looking down. “I can’t imagine the heartbreak you’d have to go through if someone you loved dies so suddenly. Like, imagine if one of us dies today and how would we feel?”

Silence wraps around them like a blanket after Tooru asks that question. They’d grown so close to each other over the last eight years and they’d all shared many arguments and fun times, losing one of them would be devastating to the remaining five. 

“I wouldn’t like to think of it,” Touka says quietly, breaking the silence between the six of them. “I like to think that all of us have the opportunity to live, meet someone, maybe start a family, then die of old age.”

They nod their heads. 

“Then we just have to keep fighting.” Ken announces. “Even if one of us dies, we fight until the vampires are gone for good, then the one who passes on can rest in peace, and the next generation of children will be safer.”

* * *

Their final exam is tomorrow, and the anxiousness that they all feel grows stronger with every passing hour. The last time they had seen a live vampire had been when they were brought out from their Blood Bag lives. Vampires did not kill Blood Bags, only sought their blood, but it isn’t the same for investigators and adults such as themselves; they are a threat to vampires and thus they would do anything to eradicate them on the battlefield.

The thought of death sends chills down Touka’s spine. She’s been unable to sleep properly the last few days due to just how nervous and scared she is for her final exam. Ken has been no different, and even the comfort of being in each other’s arms is not enough to drive away the dread.

Due to the lack of sleep, they all have dark eye circles. The adults—their future colleagues—tell them that it’s normal, that they went through the same thing prior to their final exam. They promise that they will not die in the final exam, that even the great Kishou Arima is there to spectate the battle, how he will be there in a flash if the vampire overpowers them. It gives them some comfort, but not much. How close to Death would they have to be for Kishou Arima himself to intervene? And more importantly, what would happen to them if he  _ did  _ have to intervene? Will they have a second chance, or will their wills crumble under the fear they experienced and they ask to leave the facility, having their memories wiped completely before being sent away?

Touka rubs her eyes and lets out a dry and long sigh. It had been agreed upon by all of them that they would not go out today to do anything, not even extra training, so they could reserve their energy for their fight against an actual vampire tomorrow. In Touka’s opinion, this is useless, because whether or not they do anything she will still not receive enough sleep. She can only hope that she is blessed by the god of sleep tonight.

“Tired?” Ken asks her softly. They’d been reading together, but she hadn’t really been reading at all, merely responding with a curt nod when he asked if she was done reading the page they were on. 

“A little,” she replies, sighing yet again. “but I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

“I won’t either, but it’ll be better to try, right?”

She nods. She is physically exhausted, but she can’t help but to think and overthink about what could possibly happen tomorrow. They are going against an actual vampire; one that could impale them with its claws and drain their blood in minutes. 

She glances at the clock. It’s only five in the evening. Time passes too slowly when she isn’t training her body. 

“Do you want to go out and eat? We can ask for a budget from the adults.” He asks.

Touka shakes her head. “I don’t feel like going out. Just… let’s eat at the cafeteria or something.”

Truth is, they’ve had no appetite today. Their breakfast had been only water, unable to even look at the miso soup they enjoy so much, let alone endure the smell. The same had been the same for the other four, likely even their entire corridor. They had no appetite in the morning, and there is no difference now.

“I’m not hungry. I don’t think you are, either.”

She shakes her head again and sits up from her comfortable position against him. He sits up as well, a hand on her back.

“I don’t like this…” she mumbles. “If we feel like this for a final exam, how will it be like when we actually go on missions? And we were so excited to be investigators when we were younger…”

He does not know how to respond to this, so he remains quiet and rubs her back soothingly, though he himself is in need of some form of comfort, too. His thoughts are made up of fear and anxiety; visions of himself being impaled through the throat and Kishou Arima not reaching him in time. These thoughts make him wonder what his last thoughts will be before darkness clouds over his eyes and he never stirs again.

He is startled when Touka cups his face in her hands, his eyes instantly snap to hers and he can see the negative emotions reflected in her eyes. Her dark eye circles are horrible, and she’s looking a little pale. He probably looks the same to her, too.

“You’re scared, right?” She asks him quietly, rubbing her thumb across his cheek soothingly. He leans his face into her hands, hoping for a little more of the warmth from her hands.

“...of course I am. Probably even more than you.”

She snorts at this, but there’s no humour behind it. “Bull.”

He grabs her hands, and her eyes widen. His hands are shaking and they’re ice cold. She is scared, too, but her hands are still stable and warm. How scared is he now for his hands to be this cold and shaky?

She stares at him in shock. It’s the first time this has ever happened. Ken had always been the calm one out of the six of them; always determined and never stuttering much at all, training dutifully without complaint and telling them about what he sees for them as future investigators. Seeing him like this is just surprising and shocking.

Her body seems to move on its own. She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him closer to herself. His trembling hands move to wrap themselves around her waist and he buries his face in the crook of her neck. He lets out a heavy, shaky sigh and holds her tighter.

“You’ll live,” she whispers to him, rubbing his back soothingly. “Didn’t you always say how we’d be Special Class Investigators?”

She feels him nod against her neck, feels his trembling hands wrap around her tighter yet again. He’s terrified and there isn’t much she can do to help him. She cannot offer him words of consolation when she herself is scared as well. All she can do at the moment is hold him to her body until they fall asleep.

* * *

Touka drags her feet when she walks. Her eyelids feel heavy, but the adrenaline and fear pumping through her veins now will not let her shut her eyes. 

They’d barely gotten any sleep last night, roughly only two hours. When their alarm clock blared in the morning Touka basically felt her heart stop for a second. She still had to complete her final exam, and so with a massive feeling of reluctance she had worn her uniform and drank a small bowl of miso soup for breakfast before trudging to where their final exam is to be held.

Their final exam is held a few levels below the Main Lobby, but a few levels above where they hold captive vampires. They cannot afford to endanger the younger children, so the final exam has to be held deeper underground.

It’s an odd arena where they have to fight their individual vampires. Only two humans are allowed in the large battlefield; the student and Kishou Arima himself to spectate the battle and intervene when necessary. The walls within are reinforced with silver alloys to prevent the vampire from escaping if they even can. Outside the arena is a space as large as the Main Lobby itself, and the current battle is displayed to the others through large screens the size of a room.

As expected, all the ones taking the final exam enter the space with fear in their eyes. Some are crying, and some are praying for safety. Touka understands the fear, as she is going through the same emotion. It didn’t matter that Kishou Arima himself would be there to intervene, the situation itself is a life or death situation and would be something they would face in their future missions for the rest of their lives if they pass the exam.

Touka’s eyes are glued to the large monitor before her. The current one fighting is a man named Shinsanpei. He darts around the room, trying his best to evade the vampire, which is definitely faster than he is. There are too many moments which caused them all to gasp in shock; when he had been scratched by the vampire, when he had fallen down and struggled to stand as the vampire loomed over him, and when he had finally managed to graze the vampire slightly on the arm. Alas, Kishou Arima had to intervene when Shinsanpei had accidentally loosened his grip on his silver sword and it had clattered to the floor, leaving him wide open to the vampire.

The next is called in, Kichimura. Oddly enough, he drops his weapon in the first five seconds and starts yelling incoherent nonsense, so much so that even the vampire stopped to stare at him. Kishou Arima did not even have to intervene, as Kichimura dashed out the door the moment the vampire had been stunned by his odd behaviour.

One by one they are called in. With every one called in, Ken tightens his grip around her hand, Rio and Saiko curl into themselves, and Tooru and Ginshi’s she grow even more sullen. It seems that one in every five people have had Kishou Arima intervene, and that number terrifies them. It’s a high chance that the vampire could overwhelm them and they would fail their final exam. 

Ginshi is the first of them to be called in. When they call him out, he stares at the five of them, eyes wide with fear and shock, a bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face as he stands and slowly makes his way towards the arena. Even as he gets further away, they can still see his stiff shoulders and even see his trembling body as he steps into the arena. 

It’s a new vampire for every student, but they’re almost exactly the same; thirsty for blood and angry. What separates them from the vampires outside captivity is that they’ve been given enough blood to move quickly, but not be able to utilise their full strength. It’s hard enough to keep track of their movements, and harder to try to land a hit on them. The silver sword they carry is heavier than the wooden swords that they trained with.

Ginshi tries his absolute best with the vampire he faces, keeping track of the vampire’s movements through sound and dodging when necessary. Eventually he’s able to slice off one of the vampire’s arm, which causes him to scream in agony.

“Bastard!” The vampire screeches. “I’ll kill you!”

In his rage, the vampire’s movements grow sloppier. It takes only a few minutes for the battle to end, Ginshi triumphant and the decapitated head of the vampire by his feet. He drops to his knees out of relief, and is escorted out by Kishou Arima. 

They congratulate him and cheer him on his success, as they had with the ones prior to him. The fear amongst them is momentarily lost as they excitedly ask him questions about his fight as he leaves for the hospital wing, but it comes back again when the next one is called, and this time it is Ken. 

Touka can feel him stiffen and when she turns to look at him his beautiful silver eyes are wide with fear. She is aware that there are about a hundred students staring at him when he cannot bring himself to stand. His hand grips hers so tightly that her fingers turn white and hurt from the pressure but it barely registers in her mind.

“It’s okay…” she tries to comfort him. “You’ll be alright. Ginshi came out of it alive, and you can, too.”

His eyes turn glassy with tears and he turns to look at her. He takes a deep breath to steel himself before he finally lets go of her hand and stands on shaky feet. It wouldn’t matter if he tried to stall out for more time; he would have to fight eventually. He couldn’t let the others graduate without him.

Ken moves toward the arena, his footsteps fast in his anxiety and just before he enters he turns back once more to glance at Touka, a little more reassured at the small smile she gives him.

He enters the arena and is greeted by Kishou Arima, given a heavy silver sword that he is not used to before he stands in the centre of the arena. The vampire will emerge from the ground in a silver cage soon, and he uses the time in between to ready his stance; one foot in front of the other, bent down slightly, and both hands gripping his sword’s hilt.

The ground opens up and the vampire is brought up, hissing and screeching in its cage. It is a female vampire, one that stares at him with the red pupils and black sclera that he has not seen since he was a child. He fears it; those eyes that look at him like that. It stirs his deepest memories of being a Blood Bag.

Right before the cage opens he shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, but when he opens them all he can see is red all over and the vampire’s head is next to his feet.

He screams and throws his weapon on the ground, mortified at the head. His attempts to back away end up with him falling on his behind, and him crawling shuffling backwards on all fours.

Did his moment of shutting his eyes cause this? That one second would have been enough for the vampire to lunge, and Kishou Arima would have stepped in to intervene in the battle. However, the older man has not moved from his position, neither is his weapon stained with vampire blood. 

Looking down at himself, he finds that the blood is on him, and there is no pain anywhere in his body, so the blood does not belong to him. He looks to Kishou Arima once again, finding the older man’s eyes wide as he approaches him and helps him to his feet.

“You did well,” Kishou Arima praises, but he does not look at Ken. “You may leave now.”

Ken does not look back on the bloody and horrific scene behind him as he walks out of the arena on shaky legs and with trembling hands.

Nobody is running up to him and congratulating him when he steps out of the arena. There is nobody asking him questions, and there are no cheers from anybody, the entire room is so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Everybody is staring at him like he’s grown a second head as he tries to search for his closest friends.

Tears blur his vision and he does not understand why. It’s harder to search for them now that his vision is blurred. “Touka…?”

A gentle, calloused hand he is all too familiar with leads him along, and he finds himself being sat on the floor. The vague sound of someone else being called to the arena rings through his ears.

“What the hell was that?” He heats Rio ask, bewildered. 

“Yeah, what happened?!” Saiko says this time.

“Stop it, he’s confused—”

“Tooru, how can he be confused if he’s the one who did it? Did you see how fast he moved?”

“Enough,” he hears Touka say. “Ken, what was that?”

He does not respond, because he has absolutely no idea what she is asking. Instead, he stares blankly in her direction.

“You moved so fast!” Saiko tells him. “The vampire was the one that was scared of you! I don’t even think she even got a scratch on you!”

He blinks, the tears quickly disappearing upon hearing her sentence. He had merely shut his eyes for a moment to dispel his extreme fear, yet they are telling him that the vampire had been the one to be scared of him? He, Ken, who had been on the verge of soiling himself, was feared by a vampire?

“I…” he mumbles quietly. “I don’t remember… I closed my eyes and…”

He wipes away the remainder of his tears. He truly does not remember even fighting the vampire. Only of the aftermath when he has been bathed in blood and the vampire’s head laid by his feet. 

“Did he black out? How’d he fight that way then?” Saiko says to no one in particular. 

“Maybe his body went into autopilot or something.” Rio suggests, scratching his head.

“He’s not a plane, though.”

Ken drowns out the noise of heated discussion around him, now lost in his own thoughts. Even though it is after his fight, he still feels fear shaking his bones, but he does not know where that fear is directed to. 

He does not emerge from his thoughts for a period of time. Only periodically he would stop and spectate the current fight, usually when it was one of them who was up to go. Out of the six of them, and out of all the candidates, he was the only one to not sustain any injuries whatsoever.

Touka and Ken had been one of the last few to go to the facility’s own hospital wing. The others had left earlier to tend to their injuries, but Ken had waited for Touka to be done with her battle before they left together. 

She had been scratched by the vampire on her right shoulder and her left thigh. It was not too serious, but she had to get her right shoulder sewn up and bandaged with her left thigh. The same went for the others, just in different locations. It had been due to the lack of strength the vampires had that resulted in wounds that were not too deep.

“You can’t think that all vampires will injure you like this.” Ken tells her while they walk back to their room. “You’ve heard the stories of how some of the adults—no, the investigators—had their bodies impaled by the vampires.”

“I know.” She tells him as they enter. “But I’ll learn to be better; I have to. I can’t walk into my first and die on the spot, can I?”

Ken pulls his mouth into a thin line at her words. As always, he thinks of the worst case scenario that could happen when they are in danger. “Please don’t say that… I’d follow you to the grave if that happened, I’ll even dive into hell if you’ll have to go there.”

Her cheeks redden. “I won’t die…” is all she can manage.

He clasps her hands tightly with his, his beautiful silver eyes stare at her like she is the most precious thing in the world. He brings her hands to his heart and lowers his face to be closer to hers. She is so short compared to him, nothing like when they had been children.

“Promise me,” he whispers. “you’ll try to survive.”

“I promise…” she whispers back, leaning her forehead against his and closing her eyes. “Maybe one day, we could start a family of our own, when this is all over.”

“I’d like that.” He murmurs, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on her lips. It is their first, but somehow it feels natural and peaceful, like it was meant to happen as it is. 

His hands move to her waist and hers to cup his face as they share another gentle kiss.

* * *

Touka’s first mission is to track down a suspected vampire. All Rank Two Investigators who have graduated from the facility are given minor missions such as these for their first missions, even though they’ve dealt with actual vicious vampires for their final exams, but they can also be given the mission to deal with a low rating vampire as well. For now, her duty is to see whether the suspect is actually a vampire. 

She has learnt from the facility that it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between a human and a vampire; they can eat human food, and they can even have offspring with one another. She is but a Rank Two Investigator, and is inexperienced, so she is given a small vial of her blood to carry around; vampires react strongly to blood just by the scent, weaker vampires cannot stop their fangs and eyes from showing once they detect the scent of blood. Vampires with stronger self control will still show visible signs such as twitching, stammering and fidgeting.

She has followed the suspected vampire into a cafe and seated herself near him. She watches as he orders a cup of coffee for himself and he seems to be waiting for someone else. Touka gets up to order her own cup of coffee so as to not look suspicious. She carries only a small silver dagger in her coat, her only line of defence during the daytime, as her silver sword is too noticeable in public.

Her heart beats rapidly in her chest, and she is sweating quite a bit, even though what she is doing is completely normal. To others, she is just a woman who has come in for a nice cup of coffee, but she feels as if she is on the verge of being exposed. 

Her thoughts are confirmed when a pretty lady walks in to sit opposite the suspected vampire. She wonders if the two of them are a pair of vampire lovers, but there is a certain way for her to find out. She carefully takes out the little vial of blood—her own blood—and opens it ever so slightly, just enough for the smell of it to peak out.

Her suspect is now confirmed to be a vampire. He has stiffened upon the scent of blood, and is looking for where the scent is coming from, she sees that his legs have started to thump on the floor in his excitement and she looks away before he can see that she is observing him. She takes a sip of her coffee while staring out the window, making a mental note to bring Ken here one day, because this is the best coffee she’s ever had.

“Nishiki?” She hears his partner asking. “Are you alright?”

“Mhm. I’m alright,” he says, and his voice sounds a little strained. She has a confirmed case on her hands, and it’s her first mission, too. It is possible for her to leave right now, but she fears that she would draw the attention of the vampire. Besides, she wants to finish this coffee and give her compliments to the owner.

She spends fifteen minutes slowly sipping away at her coffee before standing up, giving a word of thanks to the owner, and leaving the cafe. She remembers its name; Anteiku, before she leaves to report back her findings. 

As she makes her way back home, she finds herself thinking about the vampire. The woman he had been with did not react to the scent of blood in the slightest, so it was clear that she is not a vampire. What Touka finds absolutely repulsive is the fact that the vampire entered a relationship with her and his intentions are not clear. She feels sorry for the woman, who will likely have her blood drained out of her body in minutes by the vampire she thinks is a man she can trust. Touka hurries her pace; she must hurry so that her superiors can locate the vampire and eradicate him sooner than later, before anyone gets hurt.

She makes it to the Main Lobby, and asks for the report form that she has to fill out. She fills in the vampire’s details; a part of his name she has heard, his identification number, where he had been last seen, who he had been with, and any significant details. For the final one she writes that he seemingly has a human lover before she hands it to one of the attendants at the counter, who keys in the information she has written down and sends it to her superiors. 

When it is confirmed that the information has been sent, Touka is dismissed. As of now, she has no new missions to complete and that is normal for her, a fresh Rank Two Investigator. It will be like this for a little while until she is promoted further up the ranks, where she will be given more and more dangerous missions to complete. 

She heads back to her room and checks the time on her phone. It is still early afternoon, and there is not much she can do in her room. She enters her room briefly, wanting to change her clothes after sweating in them so much. She does not expect to see Ken there, as she had thought that he was still on his mission.

“Oh!” She yelps. “I didn’t expect to see you back early.”

He frowns for a moment, then smirks. “Didn’t think I could complete my given mission in time? Took me less than half an hour to find the vampire, and fifteen minutes to identify her properly.”

“Same, but mine was a weird one.” Touka tells him as she sits on her bed, her plan to go out almost forgotten.

“How so?”

“He has a human girlfriend.”

Ken’s face twists into one that displays both anger and disgust. “That’s disgusting. It’s bad enough that they drink our blood, now they want relationships? Poor girl, too.”

“I know, right?” Touka agrees with him. “They already made a report for the higher ups, I hope they eradicate him soon. Oh, and I actually found a good coffee shop when I was tracking him down.”

He raises his eyebrows, waiting for her to continue.

“Come on, I’ll take you there—oh, but don’t forget to bring your silver dagger with you. We don’t want any accidental encounters with vampires.”

They take small silver daggers with them, small enough that they can carry them in the inside pockets of their coats without much discomfort, then they exit the facility once again. 

Touka leads him towards Anteiku, the two of them having small chats along the way. The old barista—the manager, she assumes—looks up and smiles at her in greeting, recognising her from earlier.

“Welcome,” the old man tells them gently before he directs his attention back to the coffee he is brewing. 

Touka finds Ken looking at the menu above the counter. “What did you have earlier?”

“Just a coffee with one sugar and one cream.” She answers, sitting herself down on one of the empty seats, coincidentally being the one the vampire had sat on earlier today. “What are you getting?”

He shrugs. “Probably the same. I’ll go order it, you can stay there.”

As he places their order, Touka takes some time to marvel at the cafe since she had not been able to whilst she had been observing the vampire. It gives her a ‘home’ like feeling, one that is not the same when she is in her room. There are many books lining the shelves all about the cafe, and there are even some left on the table by previous customers. She sees a few animal sculptures carefully crafted from wood adorning some of the tables, even a few antique items like an old telephone from the early twentieth century. With the amazing aroma of freshly brewed coffee, the cafe is truly a beautiful place.

Ken comes back with two cups of coffee and sets one in front of her, to which she smiles at him. The cup of coffee is steaming, so she blows on it for a while before taking a small sip. It’s somehow even better than the first cup she had earlier today. 

“It’s really damn good.” Ken comments sincerely, taking another sip from his cup. “I think they added spices, too.”

Now that he mentioned it, Touka could taste the difference this coffee has to other coffees she has drank in the past; there is a hint of earthiness and sweetness not from sugar she can taste, followed by something she can only describe as ‘musty.’

Their environment became more quiet after some time, since lunch break for most working people is now over. They did not speak much, allowing the sounds of brewing coffee and plates clinking to fill their ears. They’d been together for so long, a little silence was never bad, in fact, silence just meant peace for them, like the moments they shared together without words in the privacy of their room. 

Some conversation between them would come up every now and then, mainly of random things, like how many books there were on the shelves, or how they felt on their first missions. It didn’t take long for their cups to be empty, and they were soon on their way back home, hand in hand.

“When we have to move out, I’d like a place near that coffee shop.” Ken tells her while pulling his scarf tighter around his neck. “It’s such a nice little place.”

“Right?” She agrees. “What about the others though?”

He raises his eyebrows and smiles a little. “It’s up to them, really. If they move further away from us, I’d be fine with it, but… I just really want you with me. It has to be you.”

His response came when she gripped his hand tighter, which he recognises as a positive response, but one she can’t exactly voice out. He glanced at her and sure enough, she has her nose buried in her scarf, hiding the obvious blush.

Grinning, he presses a quick kiss to the side of her head, not missing how she looked away out of embarrassment.

* * *

Touka had finished seven simple scout missions before she’s first sent on a midnight mission. Midnight missions are meant to deal with vampires during the dead of night, as they tend to hunt during the night hours, but since she is only a Rank Two Investigator, she has been assigned to eliminate a C-rated vampire; ones that are incapable of much attacking power and ones who prey on the blood of the elderly or humans who have committed suicide.

She has dealt with a vampire before, during her final exam, so she should have no problem against a vampire that could hardly fight back. However, it had been a solid month since her final exam, and just to be safe they sent her with a partner; Rio, who has to execute the same mission as her.

Their mission details tell them that the vampire they are supposed to eliminate scavenges dead bodies off the side of a cliff, an unfortunately popular place for people to commit suicide. This particular vampire returns to this exact place once every three days at three in the morning, and after she has drank her fill she flees. Sometimes, she collects some of the blood in a container before leaving.

The time is roughly three quarters past two in the morning. The both of them are tired, but they keep their guards up to face their first vampire as actual investigators. Compared to the one they faced in their final exams, this one should be an absolute cakewalk, especially since they can now wield their silver swords without many strange looks from the public at this time.

Touka yawns, and Rio looks at her. “Tired?”

“Mhm…” she replies, rubbing one of her eyes. They’ve hidden themselves in nearby bushes, and their scent is well hidden with the blood and rotting flesh from the fallen people around them. When they had first arrived, they almost threw up on the spot, but the bodies had not been cleaned up in order to act as bait for the vampire, so their only option had been to suck it up and wait it out.

The one thing that kept them from throwing everything and going back home was the fact that this mission carries more money than their previous missions combined, a whole thirty thousand yen for each of them, just to eradicate a C-rated vampire.

After more time of waiting they finally hear the rustling they’ve been dying to hear for close to an hour. They peek through their hiding spots to observe their target, and then a wave of absolute fear washes over them.

Their target was supposed to be female, small and thin, supposedly extremely weak. The one they are looking at now is a male, taller than Rio and looking healthy, completely different to the one they were supposed to eliminate. What’s more is that they do not recognise this vampire, there is no way for them to confirm the vampire’s rating, how he fights and many others.

Rio manages to catch Touka’s attention in the darkness. He points to his face and makes a hand gesture that covers his entire face, he holds up the vial of blood they always carry around, then points at the vampire.

_ Look at his reaction to blood. _

The vampire is facing their direction, but is too focused on draining the blood of the suicide victims to even notice them. His eyes are black and red, the proper way a vampire’s eyes are supposed to be when they are drinking blood and his body is trembling as he drinks, trembling with the sheer ecstasy of being able to down blood in plentiful amounts. They have learnt that stronger vampires tend to not show this ecstasy when drinking blood.

_ “This is a weaker vampire,” _ she realises, likely around a rating of B or C+, perhaps even B+. Even though they have a grasp of what his rating could be, they still need to be cautious. One wrong move and they could have his hand skewered through their bodies; B rated vampires and above have strength higher than a C rated vampire, which could be said to have strength similar to an average human.

She grips her silver sword and nods at Rio, then she holds up three fingers.

_ On three. _

On her countdown they leap out from their hiding spots, startling the vampire to the point he drops the corpse he had been drinking from and gapes at them. His shock only lasts momentarily and he readies himself into a fighting position, fangs and claws bared at them as they charge at him. 

This vampire is stronger than the one they fought for their final exam, but slower due to the lack of desperation for blood. With their training, it’s easy to see where he aims his claws at and evade them. Since there are two of them and he is inexperienced, he can only target one while the other fights back. It really did not take long for them to lop his head clean off, leaving behind smouldering black stuff at the base of his decapitated head.

They did not come away unharmed, though. The vampire had mainly targeted Rio, and he ended up with a scratch on his face and a cut in his arm. Touka had gotten a sprained ankle after moving just a bit too fast.

“You think they’ll give us a higher pay?” Rio asks her, breathless, while she bandages his arm. 

“Probably.” She replies, equally tired and breathless while tying the bandage off. They would have to go to the facility’s hospital to get it properly treated but for now this was good enough. “They didn’t do a good enough job tracking her, maybe he killed her or something to take over this spot. You know vampires with their territories… Can you move?”

“Mhm. Let’s go back home, it’s already so late…”

They turn away from each other to change into new sets of clothes that they brought along in their suitcases; entering a vehicle while covered in blood would raise eyebrows and they would probably be sent to the police station, and how would they explain themselves after that?

The trains and buses no longer ran at this time, so they could only hail a cab to take them back home. The location puzzled the driver, because who would try to adopt a child at three in the morning, and what were they even carrying? He said nothing though, and took them back without a comment.

Few people are up at this time, only the ones at the counter taking the night shift and those who had midnight missions like they had. Touka and Rio file their reports; how the target had been the wrong one and that they’ve eliminated him. They pass the report to the receptionist and make their way to the facility’s own hospital, where Rio’s wounds are disinfected and wrapped properly and they are given painkillers in case they need it. 

Touka and Rio return to their respective rooms, bidding each other goodnight before stepping in. For Touka, her room’s lights are still switched on, but Ken is fast asleep on her bed with his arm shielding his eyes from the light. There’s a opened book laying on his chest, too, and she thinks that he may have tried to stay up to wait for her but he ended up dozing off.

Being as quiet as possible, she takes a much needed shower, and after she carefully removes the book from his chest and places it on the floor. She switches off the light and is careful to not stir him from his peaceful slumbering as she nestles herself next to him. 

“Goodnight,” she whispers to him before she falls into a deep sleep, where she dreams of a peaceful life not as an investigator and as a normal woman, still going to school at her current age of seventeen years old.


	6. Hesitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone. I’m sorry for the month long wait for this chapter, I haven’t really been feeling that great recently and there had been no motivation to write; I don’t know when I’ll be finished with Chapter 7 but with the home based learning I have now, I hope that I can write Chapter 7 faster.

Ken hides himself in the darkness of the night, his dark uniform adds to his camouflage. It is a midnight mission for him; to eliminate a vampire that had gone off the radar a few months ago, but had recently resurfaced.

Earlier, he had shown his target to Touka, who recognised the target as the one she and Rio failed to eliminate a few months ago, the one that had another male vampire show up in her place. The vampire’s rating has not changed; still a C rated vampire, so he should not have much issue eliminating this target.

However, it is the C rated vampires that he is most uncomfortable with eliminating. Granted, they hardly ever fight back, which basically grants him an easy elimination and quick money, but they are so weak that it feels like he is killing a human rather than a vampire. Sometimes, they can’t even bare their fangs and claws at him, and those are the times where he has to shut his eyes before he brings his silver sword down on their heads, ignoring their pleas for mercy.

The C rated vampires tend to only drink the blood of the elderly or of suicide victims, and the spot he has hidden himself in is near an unfortunately popular destination for people to commit suicide. Touka had warned him about the smell, because hardly anyone bothers cleaning up this place since the fresher bodies are used as bait for vampires, but he never imagined it to be so bad; he’s thrown up twice already from the stench. At least it’ll help mask his scent from the vampire.

He has been standing there, in the darkness, in the disgusting stench, for well over twenty minutes now, and he desperately wants to go home, but he must complete this mission. 

To distract himself from the stench he throws himself into deep thoughts, thoughts about his future; he has been an investigator for more than half a year now, and he has saved up enough to rent an apartment in Tokyo. He and Touka have talked about moving out soon, after they find a small place for them to rent where they can live comfortably. Somewhere that is not too far from the facility, and not too far from Anteiku, if possible.

It will be a headache to move out. They’ll have to spend a lot of money purchasing furniture, buying insurance and whatnot. There will be the possibility of them moving to a larger place in the future, too, so the process will repeat itself. In the end, however, they will have their own place to call home.

He will work his hardest for the future. If they ever have children, he will make sure that they have a good life; they will be normal children, and they will not know of vampires, if they can help it. He would never want his children to walk the path that he is walking on, it is too dangerous and he wants them to have a choice.

His thoughts wander off to his child, if they’ll ever have one. Would they look more like him or Touka? Would they be more energetic like their mother, or be more reserved like their father? The questions are never ending, but he knows that he will love them no matter what. 

Hushed whispers and footsteps stir him from his daydreaming and he quickly focuses his attention to the pile of bodies. There is hardly any moonlight for him to be able to see properly, but he can just barely make out the dark silhouette of his target. He draws his silver sword that hangs from his waist and grips the hilt.

“Mommy, it smells bad here, and I’m hungry...”

Ken freezes on the spot. He almost loses his grip on his sword in his shock. There are two silhouettes now, and one is definitely smaller than his target; her child.

He knows very well that vampires can reproduce, but this is his first time seeing a vampire child. It’s odd though, because a vampire’s behaviour is to usually leave their children at home and they will bring the blood to them. He is curious as to why the child is out with their mother at this time, and so he stays still in his position, observing.

“I know, Hinami,” his target whispers. “I’m sorry, without your father, I can’t feed you well enough… I’m sorry that you have to get the blood with me now…”

“It’s okay, Mommy. We can talk to Daddy here, right?”

“Yes, we can…”

Ken could hear her voice break at her last sentence, and it sends something uncomfortable slithering down the pits of his stomach. His stomach starts to feel as if it is doing somersaults, and it feels harder to breathe now.

His mind feels as if it has been split in half; one telling him to do his job and quickly eliminate them, the other telling him that the vampire is only a hungry child who has just lost their father. The latter half is already winning the battle, and he cannot bring himself to raise his sword. 

He needs to eliminate the vampire, both her and the child, before that child can grow and reproduce. He has to, it’s part of his duty, but he just can’t. He screams at his body to move, to raise his sword and eliminate the both of them in one fell swoop, but his own body does not listen to him, and he is glued in place, his stomach growing more uncomfortable by the second.

The vampire begins to sob, and her child is starting too as well. He is begging mentally for her to stop, to stop crying and stop making him hesitate. He has his duty to fulfil.

Still, his body will not move. He cannot run towards them to decapitate them, and he cannot run away to get away from this sickening atmosphere. His stomach churns violently until he does a double take and empties his stomach onto the grass beneath him.

_ “Oh, fuck,” _ he thinks to himself. He’s exposed himself, and he knows that the vampires have heard him because the sobbing has suddenly ceased. He wipes his mouth and hears his target ushering her child away, and he curses at himself for letting his target flee.

Ken wipes the tears away from his eyes and steps over his vomit. There is no way for him to chase after a vampire; even a C rated vampire can outrun him for miles and never grow fatigued. His mission this time is a failure, his first failure, and he will have to explain this in his report but he has no idea what reason he will provide.

Sighing to himself, he walks into the forest surrounding him until he can find the main road. The uneasiness in the pits of his stomach does not stop, not even when he is in open space and breathing fresh air that does not stink like rotting bodies. Something is happening and he does not like what it is.

He manages to hail a cab and he is on his way back to the facility. The driver gives him odd looks but he is already used to that from his midnight missions; he says he is a cosplayer if they ask him about his sword, and answers that he cosplays from a fandom that isn’t well known. Luckily, the driver does not ask him anything and the ride back home is silent.

_ “A vampire child…” _ he thinks to himself. He wants to know why such a concept is disturbing him so much when he already knew of their existence since he was a boy. Did he actually feel bad for the vampires? Is he really that big of a softie?

He clenches his fist on his lap. There’s no way. He can’t be feeling sympathy for such a monstrous creature, and he’d sworn that he would eliminate vampires for a safer world. Why would he be feeling sympathy for monsters that made him a Blood Bag, why would he be feeling sympathy for monsters that literally drain the life out of humans? It doesn’t make sense at all. He wants to speak to Touka about this, get her opinion on the odd feelings swirling in his head now.

When the taxi reaches his destination he hastily pays the fee and stumbles out of the taxi. He thought too much in the taxi and now his emotions are a complete mess and he wants to be in her arms. He wants to feel safe again.

He almost sprints towards his room after his report and fumbles in his pocket for his key before finally entering the room. 

It is dark and quiet. For a moment he stills, afraid that Touka is not there when he wants to be in her arms but he hears her quiet breathing and he lets out a sigh of relief. 

The light would wake her up rudely so he gropes around the room in the dark for his nightwear and heads into the bathroom; after all, he can’t go to bed smelling like a walking corpse, even if only faintly, no matter how badly he wants to now. His shower is fast and soon he slips himself beneath the covers next to Touka.

She is a light sleeper and stirs the moment he lays himself next to her. She lifts her arms up slightly to allow him to wrap his arms around her and rest his head in the crook of her neck. It has been his favourite sleeping position for a while now and she has grown used to it.

“How was your mission?” She enquires sleepily. 

“I… I didn’t complete it,” he admits to her. She is calming his frantic nerves and breathing grows easier for him.

“Why?” Her voice is a little clearer now, obviously a little shocked at his reply. Though they have only been investigators for a little more than half a year she knows that he has never once not completed a mission.

“Touka… have you ever seen vampire children?” 

In the darkness she frowns at his question. It was random and something she thought of as nothing. “No, why?”

“That vampire you and Rio missed, she came with a child,” he explains. “I think… I think one of us killed that child’s father. My target was crying and so was the vampire child. I just…” 

He sighs, unable to convey his emotions into proper words. “I don’t know what I felt… I couldn’t move at all, I couldn’t even hold my sword properly. I don’t… I don’t know why…”

Touka does not speak, for there is nothing she can say to comfort him. She has never been in a similar situation and thus she does not know what words she can offer to console his confused emotions. She runs her fingers through his thick hair gently, comfortingly. 

“You submitted the report, though?” She asks while holding him a little tighter. “A higher up will probably ask you about it, and you can explain further to them… when I failed my mission it was Special Class Yomo that came to see me and Rio to confirm the report.”

“What will I even tell them?” He sighs. “I let a vampire go, and I don’t even know why I did it…”

Touka says nothing, only running her fingers through his hair in a manner she knows that he likes until he falls asleep in her arms, which does not take long at all. It takes a while longer for her to fall back asleep after hearing what Ken had just told her, though. There is an uncomfortable feeling growing in her stomach and she does not like it one bit.

* * *

It is Associate Special Class Amon who seeks him out a few days later. His superior approaches him in the Main Lobby with his report in hand and shows it to him as he leads him to one of the nearby tables.

“You let your target get away?” Koutarou asks as he takes a seat. There is no disappointment or anger in his voice, it is just a simple question but Ken can’t help but feel as if he is about to be punished. 

He lowers his head, much like he had done as a child when he had been caught doing something bad by one of the adults. “It was my fault entirely. I sustained no injuries whatsoever and should not have let the target run.”

Koutarou sighs and folds his hands in front of him. “Care to explain to me what happened that caused you to let your target run?”

Ken stills. He looks up, and opens his mouth to speak, but closes it just as abruptly, then opens it again like he is a fish. How is he even going to explain what he had seen and felt on his mission a few nights ago? He’d basically shown mercy to a vampire, something he was not supposed to do in his line of work.

He fidgets with his fingers as he tries to come up with an excuse as to why his target had managed to run away. Sweat starts to bead down the side of his face and the racing of his heart is making everything worse; he is nervous, he is nervous because he knows that he has done something wrong.

“Ken?” Koutarou calls worriedly. They are colleagues now and Ken is his junior, but he has seen him grow from a boy to the young man he is now and he views him like a son. Something emotional had definitely happened to him during his mission because he knows that Ken is not one to not complete his mission, even if against a C rated vampire.

“I-I…” Ken starts, still fumbling for proper words. “I saw—there was this—I was—”

“Calm down, Ken.” Koutarou says, sitting forward, his expression now worried. “Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

Ken does as he is told, taking deep breaths but he takes time to calm himself down. He does not understand why he is reacting so badly over a child vampire and their mother, his target. He should have risen up from his hiding spot and ran to eliminate his target the moment he heard those footsteps. Perhaps then he could have been spared from these confusing feelings that run rampant in his head now.

“Now, what did you see?” Koutarou asks him after he has calmed himself down. “You don’t have to tell me everything, just tell me the main thing you saw for you to…”

He nods his head and draws another deep breath. “Vampire child.”

His senior frowns at this. “But… you have learnt about vampire children before, right? What was so surprising about this one? It wasn’t even your target to begin with.”

“I have, but this…vampire child, it came with my target, and they were crying.”

“Crying?”

Ken nods his head quickly. “I think they were crying over their—ugh—dead husband and father.”

Koutarou sighs again and crosses his arms in front of him as he leans back into his chair. “You were very unlucky, Ken. Every investigator here knows that vampire children exist, but hardly any of them ever encounter one in their careers, but you are one of the unfortunate few who encountered one.”

“Why… why is that bad?”

“Ken, let me ask you; would you harm a child?”

“No! Of course not, why would you—”

“Exactly. Vampire children are basically mini C rated vampires; most of them cannot even grow their claws or fangs or even change their eyes. Investigators  _ know  _ that the child they are facing is a vampire, but almost all of them cannot bring themselves to raise their sword because it is too much like killing a human child. Some of the blasted vampires know this as a crucial weakness for us, and they bring their offspring along with them so they can hide behind them.”

Ken can see it happening to him; he will freeze on the battlefield during a crucial moment just like the night of that mission, he will hesitate and another vampire will finish him off during that small moment of hesitation. He pauses, then replays the words in his head again. “Almost all?”

Koutarou nods his head. “I’ve seen only one person cut down vampire children without hesitation; Kishou Arima. I think you know why at this point.”

He knows very well indeed. The legendary investigator amongst them is emotionless in battle, or so he has heard. It isn’t hard for him to imagine Kishou Arima raising his sword and killing a vampire child in a split second without any hesitation.

“You said that they were crying over a dead male vampire?”

Ken nods his head, shutting his eyes when he recalls the horrible, heartbroken cries he had heard that night. It sends his skin crawling and stomach dropping and he absolutely hates it.

His mentor says nothing for a period of time. His eyes are cast on the table between them, deep in thought. When he is finally ready to speak he sighs once again, then looks up. “Ken, I think it’s in your best interest to go speak to Special Class Arima.”

His mouth parts in shock at this. Mr. Amon wants him to go see Kishou Arima?  _ The _ Kishou Arima?

“Why…?”

“Look, many of us who’ve seen child vampires usually don’t have any… lingering emotions after seeing them. However, you saw a vampire performing a human-like action; praying to and mourning the dead. It’s extremely rare for an investigator to see this, even more rare for one as young as you,” Koutarou explains. “and sometimes, it could affect your future missions regarding the elimination of some vampires.”

“How could it affect me? Can’t… can’t you erase the memories like you did with the children at my orphanage?” He asks frantically.

Koutarou’s lips press into a thin line and he looks downwards. “It only works on young children, and your situation happens to one investigator every three or four generations of investigators, or so I’ve heard, but all the ones that have encountered something like what you have eventually resign—no, they crack.”

Ken’s eyes widen and his lips part once again. “Why…?” He whispers.

His mentor stands. “The vampires end up seeming too… human for them. Ken, until you see Special Class Arima, do not accept any elimination missions. I warn you not to, because everything could crumble down for you if you do.”

With those haunting words, Koutarou walks away, leaving Ken to digest the words slowly, carefully, cautiously.

* * *

It is late July when they are given proper surnames. The purpose of giving them surnames is to give them a proper identity for when they eventually have to move out from the facility to make room for the newer batches. 

The ones from the same corridor are lined up side by side in Special Class Arima’s office to receive their surnames. For their corridor, all twenty of them are present and they receive their surnames at random, drawing them from a box.

“Are you satisfied with your surnames?” Special Class Arima asks them after they have all drawn out a surname. “If you are not, you may draw once more.”

The young investigators before him start reading their full names out loud. Sooner or later a few of them will draw another surname, unsatisfied with their current one.

“What’d you get?” Touka asks Saiko.

“Yonebayashi…” Saiko mumbles, still staring at the little piece of paper with her surname on it. She repeats her full name a few times in her head before smiling. “I love it! It sounds cool! What’s yours?”

“Saito,” Touka says, and she grimaces at her full name. “I need another surname. This is just too weird.”

She returns to Kishou Arima and asks to choose another surname, to which he allows. She draws the second surname and it sounds much better than the previous one; Kirishima. 

“How’s the second one?” Saiko asks when she returns. “Does it sound better or worse?”

“It’s Kirishima. I think I like it,” she says. Her full name replays itself multiple times in her head before she actually confirms that she likes the surname. “Touka Kirishima… I think it sounds good.”

“It does sound good!” She turns towards Rio. “Rio, what about yours?”

“Uh… Jeiru? It sounds foreign.” He responds, looking at the little sheet of paper with an odd and confused look.

“Sounds like the English word for jail;  _ jail _ .” Ken chimes in. “Makes it sound like you’re a criminal.”

“Oh, shut it,” Rio sighs before glancing at Ken’s little piece of paper. “It’s probably better than yours, what’d you even get?”

“Kaneki, it means ‘golden tree’, better than jail, right?” He laughs. “At least I’m gold.”

Rio swats him over the head and leaves to ask about Tooru and Ginshi’s surnames.

“If you are satisfied with your surnames, you may leave. If you are not, take another.” Special Class Arima tells them as he leans back into his chair.

Almost all of them leave the room. Only Tooru, Ken and Touka are left.

“I’ll catch up with you! Just text me where you’ll be at!” Tooru yells at Ginshi as he exits the room. He draws another piece of paper from the box and smiles at it, now satisfied with the surname. “Touka, Ken, are you not happy with yours?

They are, but they are staying for a different reason. Ken has to speak to Special Class Arima, like what Associate Special Class Amon told him to do. He thinks it is best for Touka to join him as well, because he had spoken to Touka about what he had seen before seeing Amon and what Amon’s advice to him was. Going by what Amon had told him, if Touka did not see Special Class Arima then she might have issues in elimination missions.

“A little,” Ken says. “I’ll probably shuffle through two or three more surnames then be on my way.”

“Same,” Touka adds.

Tooru frowns, but he says nothing and exits the office. Ken watches the door close properly before he turns to Special Class Arima to speak. 

“Sir? I need to discuss something with you,” Ken begins. It is hard to even get proper words out of his throat.

Special Class Arima’s emotionless face changes for the first time since they’ve seen him. His eyebrows raise up and there is a questioning look in his eyes. “Speak.”

“Associate Special Class Amon… he was the one who recommended me to speak to you about this very… uh… particular matter.”

“Then, why is she here if it is you who wants to speak to me?”

“Sorry, sir,” He apologises. “I have dragged her into the matter by accident and we need to hear your advice on it.”

Special Class Arima nods his head, signalling for him to continue.

Ken draws a deep breath before he continues. “Sir, the two of us are Rank Two Investigators, and a few weeks ago I was sent on an elimination mission… during that mission I came across a… a vampire child.”

He glances at Touka, who flashes him a weak smile. It’s enough for him to continue.

“Associate Special Class Amon told me that it wasn’t uncommon to see vampire children, but this one, along with my target, its mother, were… ugh… praying to their dead father and husband.”

He stops because Special Class Arima holds up a hand for him to stop speaking. The man before them sighs quietly. “Associate Special Class Amon was right to recommend you to visit me regarding this issue. I assume you spoke to your woman about this as well?”

“He has,” Touka responds, ignoring what Special Class Arima had said about her being Ken’s woman. It is true they are in a relationship, but they have not revealed it to others, not even their closest friends. 

Special Class Arima turns towards Ken. “You’ve made a mistake in dragging her into this, boy. What you have witnessed and what she has heard from you has caused investigators to quit their line of work. I may not be able to offer you much help regarding this, either.”

They swallow. Not even Kishou Arima could offer them much help? 

“You have witnessed a vampire performing an action that we humans perform, and because of this your mind will subconsciously cause you to hesitate in future missions regarding eliminations,” Special Class Arima explains. “Since it is a mental issue, there really is not much I can help you with. Therapy has a low chance of helping you, too.”

“Then… Do you have any methods we can use? Anything that can help our hesitation?” Ken asks. They cannot be investigators if all they do is scout; they’ll never be promoted, and they’ll never make enough money to move out properly.

The man before them eyes them and remains silent for a few moments. “Think of what they did to you; think of the fear you lived under when you were Blood Bags. Think of what they would do to other humans if you were not there to stop them.”

They look down. It’s almost the same thing they’ve been telling themselves up until now, so his words are practically useless for them.

“...and think of what they would do to your future children if you kept hesitating.”

Touka looks up first, followed by Ken. The advice, as of now, is still useless to them, but it does make them ponder how they would protect their children, if they ever have any. 

“Did you think like this when you were younger, sir?”

He nods. “I’m telling you what I told myself when I was around your age. It might not be much, but soon your body attunes itself to fact; the vampires are your enemy and you will stop hesitating.”

The advice they received had not been much, but they still thanked him anyways. Special Class Arima told them that they could talk to him if they were feeling troubled in the future, and they accepted but it is likely that they would not visit him again.

* * *

It takes another week for Ken to accept an elimination mission because he makes absolutely sure that his target this time is a B or B+ rated vampire. The higher rating gives him two advantages; he will have to work faster and he would not have time to hesitate, and that he will have a partner with him. For his partner, he chooses to bring Touka because she needs to face the same challenges as him. 

There is a certain amount of guilt and regret he has for telling her about the vampire and her child crying. If he’d known about the consequences it would bring he would’ve never told her to begin with. Now, she would have to deal with the hesitation when she has to eliminate a vampire, an act that could one day cost her her life. He tries to not show his guilt and regret though, because he doesn’t want to burden her anymore than he already has.

Their elimination mission takes place near an abandoned building. Their data tells them that teenagers tend to go missing around this area and the reasoning is easy to understand; many moody teenagers tend to enter the abandoned building to get away from society, making them easy and perfect targets for the hungry vampire who has chosen to make this place his hunting ground.

They arrive donning their black uniform and wielding their silver swords. Two Rank Two Investigators who’ve been sent here to eliminate this particular vampire have fallen to his claws and fangs so they have to be extremely cautious when they fight against this vampire. It is good, too, as this would trigger their instinct to survive, completely destroying the hesitation they would have.

“We can’t fail this,” Touka tells him quietly as they approach the abandoned building. It seems to shadow over them even in the dark and the presence they can sense within is foul and scary. “It could mean our lives if we do. We can’t hesitate.”

“I know.” He replies and he reaches for her hand and squeezes it reassuringly. “We won’t die. I’ll make sure of it.”

Between the two of them, Touka has the superior speed while he has the better physical strength. They’ve discussed formations in battle and it was decided that he would be the one the vampire would focus his attention on while she would execute a fast paced attack on him. She had originally argued that she should be the one who would act as a target but he’d countered it easily by stating that her speed far exceeded his and he would not be able to catch up to them.

The little briefcases they carry have first aid medical supplies within because it is certain that they’ll be needing them. They can only hope that they are not too injured in this battle, because the ride back home is over twenty minutes long, and it could draw suspicions from the driver.

They enter the building and, as expected, the vampire does not come out immediately. Information on him tells them that he requires a  _ reason _ to come out, and investigators are not the reasons he is looking for. The facility has already prepared a proper reason, though. This vampire has been starved for a week at this point, because the building was planned to be demolished soon, and people should stay clear of it.

The vampire will not come yet, so they put on special night vision goggles given to them for visibility and Touka takes out the little vial of blood she always has on her during her missions. Their plan is to draw out the vampire with the scent of blood because he is likely so desperate for a drop of blood that he would pounce immediately after smelling it.

“Ready?” She asks, and only when she has confirmation that he is ready for combat does she open the little vial.

The starved and desperate snarl that fills their ears sends shivers down Touka’s spine. She barely has five seconds to ready herself before she hears the shuffling around her. The vampire is here and he is starving for blood.

A common technique of lower rating vampires is to use fast paced movements to throw off their opponents and then strike them from the back, where their swords cannot defend properly. A B+ rated vampire tends to use these techniques, but a starved one is more careless and tends to miss, but they are faster and that is why they are deadlier.

He is almost too fast to see so they have to rely on their other senses. Their hearing tells them that he is much faster than what they anticipated so their plan has been thrown out the window and they press their backs against each other. 

The three of them are in a deadlock now. The vampire can’t attack because there is no proper opening, and they cannot move because if they do he would rip them to shreds. 

Touka’s heart pounds against her rib cage. Her breathing is fast and shallow but she feels like she can move freely from the adrenaline. She has to think fast, before the vampire can think of a plan.

The vampire stops in his tracks, realising that he could do nothing but they couldn’t either. His hungry snarling is still there, reminding them that if they break their formation it could be the end of them.

_ “He’s hungry,”  _ Touka thinks, and then she mentally slaps herself for not thinking about this sooner. She takes out the vial of blood and promptly throws it across the building, watching as it sails through the air and crashes on the floor, spilling the blood onto the dusty concrete.

In an instant the vampire disappears from his position on the floor, his hunger overtaking every sense in his body as he desperately tries to take up what little blood was in the vial. Heck, he is even popping the blood stained glass shards into his mouth to suck up any blood he could.

It is then that Ken surges forward and raises his sword, only fast enough to slice off the vampire’s arm when he darts away. 

Touka curses under her breath. She should’ve been the one to react, since she is faster than Ken. Now they have to deal with a vampire that is probably three times angrier than he’d been ten seconds ago. On the plus side, the pain and smell of his own burning flesh would throw off his senses greatly.

“I wish you’d cut off his leg,” Touka grumbles to Ken as they assume their battle positions once more.

“Fight now, regret later.” He responds. 

It’s much easier to fight back now, and they can even separate from their back to back positions because the vampire has significantly slowed down after the loss of a limb. 

Ken turns and swings his sword in an arc in front of him when the vampire leaps behind him, slashing him across the chest and sending a spray of blood across the both of them. The vampire collapses, clutching at his chest and breathing heavily while cursing at them.

It is a battle he can no longer win, so he attempts to flee. Touka gives chase immediately, pushing past Ken and running out of the building. The vampire is still attempting to run away, even though his speed has dropped so far that even Touka can match his speed. It takes her only a few quick strides before she slices off one of his legs.

Her silver sword is stained with the vampire’s blood and she holds it up to his neck as he struggles to futilely crawl away. Normally she would have decapitated her target by now but this time…

Questions she would have never asked herself begin to fly through her head at fast speeds; does this vampire have relatives? Does he have offspring? Would anyone miss him if she were to slice his head off right here and now? 

Her body will not move anymore, and she recalls the time when Ken told her about his similar experience; how his body would not move, how he could not even raise his sword. 

A sharp pain shoots up her leg and in that small moment she has before her face hits the floor she realises why it is so important for her to move on and to never hesitate in elimination missions. The pain only intensifies with every growing second after she hits the ground and soon she is yelling in pain, clutching at her leg which feels as if someone had just burnt it.

A second wave of pain hits her and she has to bite on her lip to prevent herself from screaming any louder. This is an abandoned place, but there is no guarantee that nobody else is around. If any other human heard her screams it would expose vampires to the public, something that would be disastrous.

In another second, something falls on the ground next to her and judging by the smell of burning flesh she does not need to see properly to know what has just fallen next to her.

“Touka!” Ken cries, tossing his silver sword aside and kneeling next to her. He frets over her wounds and scrambles for his little briefcase, which contains the bandages he needs to perform first aid on her.

As he fumbles around with the bandages she manages to look at her wounds; multiple deep cuts across her left leg, and two puncture holes on her right.

The bastard had bitten her.

“We-we need to get you back—to the facility! The doctors… they’ll fix you.” He mumbles to her as he hastily bandages her wound, trying to be as gentle as possible. It is futile though, because no matter how gentle he is she still whimpers and moans in pain.

“Can… can you stand? I’ll carry you!” He says, already picking her up. “Ah, take your sword. We can’t leave it here.” 

Ken is panicking mentally now. They cannot enter a taxi with her condition like this; the driver would likely bring them to a hospital where her wounds could expose vampires to the public, or he would be taken to the police as someone who had injured Touka, and there is no way he could carry Touka all the way back home because she could lose more blood on top of the blood she’d already lost to the blasted vampire.

He runs until he can see the road they came here on. Hardly any cars pass by this area now that it had been announced that the abandoned building nearby would be demolished soon but there is a black car waiting there.

His breath stops when a figure emerges from the car, but the fear in him turns to shock when he sees that it is Associate Special Class Amon.

“Sir…” he breathes as his mentor approaches him. 

“I saw that you took up an elimination mission with Touka,” he says and nods at the woman in Ken’s arms. “I knew it was a good idea to come. The two of you weren’t ready yet. Get in the car.”

Ken does as he is told because he wants to get Touka to one of the doctors as soon as possible, he even tells Associate Special Class Amon to step on the damn pedals because she is in so much pain.

Even in the car he does not let her go. Her body trembles against him from the pain, her breathing is short and heavy and she is whimpering from the wounds she received. Every little bump they hit seems to make it worse for her and there is nothing he can do to help her aside from holding her closer to him and assuring her that they’ll reach the facility soon.

Their mentor is probably breaking speed limits now but he has little room to care when his disciple has been wounded like this. 

The trip takes almost half an hour and when they finally stop the car Ken is already tumbling out of it and making a beeline towards the facility’s hospital. The wait down the lift feels agonising to him and he isn’t even the one that is injured, as soon as the doors open he is running once more and does not stop until he reaches the hospital.

A nurse leads him to an empty room and asks for him to leave her on the bed, then requests for him to leave.

“But—” he starts.

“Sir, please,” the nurse interrupts him. “We have to disinfect and stitch her wounds, and you would contaminate the room if you stayed inside. Please, you must stay outside.”

“Do as she says,” Associate Special Class Amon says from behind. “It’s not too serious. She’ll be okay soon.”

Reluctantly, he leaves the room, turning around to see her unconscious form as the door shuts behind him. Ken presses his back against the wall next to the door, his figure sagging and he lets out a sigh, one of relief and frustration.

“You see now why it is so important to not hesitate,” His mentor speaks. “One day, it could be you. It could be on your arm, your chest, or your head. You could lose an arm, a leg, or your life.”

Ken nods his head absentmindedly, the words of his superior going in one ear and flying out the next. She had never been wounded like this before; the worst wounds she’d received were merely bruises from training in their younger days. She had been cut deeply and even bitten while she was with him. 

He had been too slow to prevent it from happening, and he curses himself for it, his fists clench when he recalls how she had been slashed by that blasted vampire. His death had been too quick.

“Go wash up. You don’t want to be dirtying the room once they’re done fixing her.” Koutarou says to him, patting him on the shoulder before he leaves.

Ken stands there for what feels like hours, simply staring at the door to the room she is in. His mentor’s words ring in his head, and it feels as if someone else is controlling his legs, bringing him back to his room. He takes a shower, as Associate Special Class Amon instructed him to, and he showers with the hottest possible water he can, as if it could melt away the regret and guilt he feels.

It is all his fault. He never should have told her about the vampire child to begin with, never should have mentioned what he had seen on that day. Her hesitation and her wounds are all his fault and he knows it very well. 

Muttering another string of curses at himself he steps out of the shower and wears simple dark clothing before he heads out, wandering back to the hospital. The door is still shut when he returns but he knocks on the door to see if he can be allowed in.

A nurse opens the door, she is the same one who ushered him out earlier. She looks at him, then glances inside the room. “Her condition is stable, you can enter if you want.”

He enters the room, almost pushing the nurse aside in his haste and simply stares at her.

She is unconscious, a blood bag connected to her arm. The blankets cover everywhere but her legs, which have been heavily bandaged. 

“No venom entered her body, you can be sure of that.” The nurse behind him says quietly before she slips out of the room, leaving them in their privacy.

Ken stares at the blood bag connected to her arm. She had lost so much blood that she needed a blood transfusion. He turns away and sets his eyes on the little plastic chair on the opposite end of the room. He drags it over to her left side and sits himself down on it.

Her face is peaceful as she sleeps and he knows that she will not blame him when she wakes; it has been her who hesitated to begin with, but no matter how she would try to console him it would never work. 

He holds her hand gently and adjusts himself so he can lie his head on the hospital bed. The position is not comfortable in the slightest, but he has no intention of leaving her side. Ever.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
